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WORD  S 


THE    WORKERS; 


A    SERIES    OF    LECTURES    TO    WORKINGMEN, 
MECHANICS,  AND  APPRENTICES. 


WILLIAM     D.    HALEY, 
n 

PASTOR  OF  THE  FIRST  CONGREGATIONAL  CHURCH  OF  ALTON,  ILLINOIS. 


BOSTON: 

CROSBY,    NICHOLS,    AND    COMPANY, 

111  Washington  Street. 
1855. 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1855,  by 

Crosby,  Nichols,   and   Compant, 

in  the  Clerk's  Office  of  the  District  Court  of  the  District  of  Massachusetts. 


CAMBRIDGE: 
MEICALF  AND  COMPANT,  PRINTERS  TO  THE  UNIVERSITY. 


*43 


INTEODUCTION 


The  following  pages  were  written  for  work- 
ers who  wish  for  words  of  encouragement 
and  hope  to  strengthen  them  in  their  toil ;  I 
wish  to  forestall  the  critics,  therefore,  by  say- 
ing to  them,  "  Gentlemen,  these  pages  are  not 
for  you."  In  the  midst  of  many  pressing 
cares,  I  have  endeavored  to  speak  to  an  emer- 
gency; and  while  I  am  sensible  of  the  great 
defects  of  my  work,  I  permit  my  words  to  go 
forth,  because  I  believe  I  have  spoken  truth 
which  may  be  of  benefit  to  a  larger  number 
of  the  w^orkers  than  I  can  personally  reach. 

I  am  not  unaware  that  the  problem,  "  What 
may  best  be  done  by  Christianity  for  the 
working  classes?"  may  receive  various  solu- 


i^2?0a'?l 


IV  INTRODUCTION. 

tions,  according  to  the  surroundings  of  those 
who  attempt  to  explain  it,  and  I  would  offer 
my  voice  to  the  thinkers  with  all  due  humility  ; 
but  it  has  seemed  to  me  best  to  speak  to  the 
workers,  rather  than  to  speculate  about  them. 

Much  of  what  follows  borrows  its  com- 
plexion from  local  circumstances ;  but  the 
main  difficulties  and  needs  of  life  are  the 
same  all  over  the  world ;  and  so  I  have  pre- 
ferred to  allow  the  Lectures  to  retain  their 
original  form,  save  the  addition    of  mottoes. 

A  difference  of  opinion  may  exist  as  to  the 
propriety  of  introducing  the  topics  of  the  Lec- 
tures into  the  pulpit  on  Sunday.  I  have  pur- 
sued this  course,  because  I  believe  that  a  por- 
tion of  each  Sabbath  might  be  more  profitably 
devoted  to  subjects  of  the  kind  here  presented, 
than  to  abstruse  philosophical  speculation  and 
dry  dogmatizing.  JMoreover,  in  the  West, 
Sunday  is  the  only  day  upon  which  the 
Christian  moralist  may  hope  for  a  hearing 
from  those  whose  days  and  nights  are  full  of 
labor.  Here  the  world  is  all  busily  engaged 
in    preparing   to   live ;   the  elements   are   yet 


INTRODUCTION. 


chaotic;  and  upon  the  faithfulness  of  the 
clergy  to  the  actual  wants  of  society  must 
depend  the  future  of  the  grand  civilization 
which  is  destined  to  exist  upon  either  bank  of 
the  Mississippi.  Seeing  this,  shall  we  not  be 
justified  in  departing  from  accustomed  forms, 
and  in  speaking  earnest  words,  and  instilling 
right  principles,  "  in  season  and  out  of  season"  ? 
Nay,  shall  we  not  be  grossly  culpable  if  we 
sacrifice  these  great  interests  to  the  exter- 
nalities and  arbitrary  customs  of  professional 
etiquette  and  clerical  dignity?  Is  not  human- 
ity worth  more  than  an  abstract  idea,  or  an 
established  custom?  These  are  questions 
which  every  man  must  settle  for  himself. 
I  have  been  governed  by  my  own  convic- 
tions of  duty,  and  do  not  presume  to  dictate 
to  others  what  shall  be  their  decision. 

The  fact  is  undeniable,  however,  that,  while 
Christianity  is  addressed  to  all  classes,  and  has 
a  supply  for  all  wants,  thousands  of  toiling 
men  live  in  our  cities,  build  our  wharves, 
navigate  our  ships,  and  erect  our  dwellings, 
and  never  hear  of  Christian  principle  or  Chris- 


Vi  INTRODUCTION. 

tian  truth.  The  Gospel  fails  in  its  mission, 
not  for  want  of  power,  but  for  want  of  appli- 
cation. Sectaries  quarrel  over  the  "respect- 
able" members  of  community,  and  contest 
for  every  new-comer  with  a  desperation  which 
the  poorer  classes  very  naturally  ascribe  to 
the  lack  of  Divine  strength  on  the  part  of 
Christianity,  and  see  in  it  proof  of  the  de- 
pendence and  subordination  of  religion  to 
Mammon.  It  necessarily  follows,  that  they 
learn  to  neglect  the  Christianity  which  neg- 
lects them,  and  so  there  grows  up  an  antago- 
nism which  results  in  Sabbath  desecration, 
and  general  extravagance  and  dissipation. 
I  know  that  much  of  the  existing  state  of 
things  is  caused  by  fallacious  reasoning  and 
imperfect  logic  on  the  part  of  the  workers ;  but 
we  have  to  deal  with  existing  facts,  not  with 
the  philosophy  of  them,  and  these  tell  us  in 
unmistakable  language,  that,  without  our 
works  first  demonstrate  the  earnestness  of  our 
words,  our  sermons  and  our  exhortations  will 
not  reach  the  hearts  of  the  working  classes. 
Much,  indeed,  of  \he  present  condition  of 


INTRODUCTION.  VU 

things  is  a  necessary  attendant  upon  the  for- 
mative condition  of  society  :  our  churches  are 
not  independent,  and  cannot  be  for  many  years 
to  come.  This  is  a  great  evil;  and  yet,  like 
all  seeming  evils,  patience  will  better  accom- 
plish its  cure  than  the  commission  of  a  wrong. 
Bound  up  with  the  affections,  and  based  upon 
the  personal  convictions  of  the  people,  the 
Church  of  Christ  in  America  will  yet  become 
more  gloriously  diffused  and  permanent  than 
any  temporarily  endowed  and  state-supported 
extern alism  of  older  countries.  There  is  a  work 
to  be  done  for  God  and  Christ  and  human 
life  upon  this  continent,  and  pure  hearts  and 
earnest  souls,  and  hands  too  "  dignified "  to 
be  limited  to  customs  and  worldly  dictation, 
must  perform  it.  There  is  something  nobler 
for  the  men  of  this  generation  than  the  war- 
fare of  dogmatisms  and  the  triumphs  of 
cliques.  Out  under  the  broad  sky  of  Chris- 
tian love, — in  the  free  air  of  Pauline  liberty, 
—  where  the  consciousness  of  rectitude  braces 
the  nerves,  and  a  reverent  and  filial  trust  in 
the  All- Good  makes  the  soul  strong  with  the 


INTRODUCTION. 


might  of  the  "  noble  army  of  martyrs,"  —  the 
sickles  of  the  earnest  workers  ring  against 
the  whitening  grain.  "  Let  us  arise  and  join 
them." 


CONTENTS 


LECTURE    I. 

Pago 
The  Pulpit  and  the  Workers.  —  Dignity  of  Labor. — 
"Fast  Young  Men."— The  Abuse  of  Labor.  —  Labor 
the  Sacrament  of  Life.  —  The  Rehitions  of  Labor  and 
the  Professions. —  The  Unity  of  Labor.  — The  Relations 
of  Labor  and  the  Pine  Arts. — Immortality  of  Labor 
and  Art 1 

LECTURE    II. 

Mutual  Relations  of  Labor  and  Capital.  —  Indebtedness 
of  Labor  to  Capital.  —  The  Mercantile  Library  and 
"Washington  Institute  of  St.  Louis.  —  Abuse  of  Capi- 
tal. —  Thomas  Puller.  —  Unity  of  the  Mission  of  Labor 
and  Capital.  —  Indebtedness  of  Capital  to  Labor.  — 
Opportunities  for  becoming  Capitalists  open  to  the 
Workers.  —  Want  of  Forethought.  —  Mutual  Benefit 


CONTEXTS. 


Societies  and  Savings  Banks.  —  Intemperance  and  Ex- 
travagance tlie  Worker's  Enemies.  —  True  Temper- 
ance. —  Bank  Failures.  —  Necessity  for  Faith  in  Hu- 
man Integrity 26 


LECTUEE    III. 

Self-Education.  —  "  Self-made  Men." — Nero  andhis  Gold- 
en House.  —  "What  is  Education  1  —  What  has  been 
done  by  Men  of  our  own  Times.  —  Hugh  Miller,  the 
Geologist.  —  Elihu  Burritt,  the  Linguist.  —  Hiram  Pow- 
ers, the  Sculptor.  —  Horace  Greeley,  the  Journalist.  — 
Aids  to  Self-Education.  —  Literature.  —  The  Church 
and  the  Pulpit.  —  Sunday.  —  Duty  of  Society.    .        .      54 

L-ECTUEE     IV. 

Reading  and  Eecreation,  or  Helps  to  Learning  and  Hints 
for  Living.  —  A  Freshman  in  the  Pursuit  of  Knowledge 
under  Difficulties.  —  True  Scholarship.  —  Directions  for 
Useful  Eeading.  —  Method.  — Fallacies  about  Study.  — 
Amount  of  Time  needed  for  Study.  —  Genius.  —  Kind 
of  Eeading  most  useful.  —  Procuring  Books.  —  Eead- 
ins:  Clubs.  —  Eecreation 78 


LECTUEE    Y. 

On  Character;  addressed  to  Young  Men.  —  The  Claims 
of  the  Young  Men  upon  the  Pulpit.  —  Importance  of 
the  Subject.  —  Destiny  of  our  Country.  —  Standards  of 
Character.  —  Poole  the  Pugilist.  —  Formation  of  Char- 
acter.—  Elements  of  Character.  —  Individualism.— 
Partyism.  — Tnie  Manliness.  —Profanity  and  Dissipa- 
tion. —  Immortality  of  Character 100 


CONTENTS.  XI 

LECTURE     VI. 

An  Appeal  to  the  Workers.  —  The  Adaptedness  of  Re- 
ligion to  bless  a  "Working  Life.  —  Religion  and  Theolo- 
gy not  the  same  Thing.  — Need  of  Mental  Culture.  — 
Education  a  Duty.  —  An  Appeal  to  Society. — An  Ap- 
peal to  Christianity 127 


LECTURE    I 


THE    DIGNITY    OF    LABOR. ITS   RELATION,  TO    THE 

PROFESSIONS    AND    THE    FINE    ARTS. 

"  Commit  thy  works  unto  the  Lord."  —  Prov.  xvi.  3. 

I  HAVE  placed  this  passage  of  Scripture  at 
the  head  of  my  first  Lecture  because  it  breathes 
the  thought  which  I  would  have  you  keep 
always  before  you,  in  the  consideration  of  the 
topics  of  this  course  of  Lectures,  —  that  labor 
—  the  toil  of  the  sinews  and  of  the  brain  —  is 
not  a  detached  necessity,  for  the  ministration 
to  our  physical  wants,  but  part  of  the  grand 
allotment  of  discipline,  out  of  which  our  spir- 
itual characters  are  to  grow ;  that  labor  is 
not  merely  a  drudgery,  but,  faithfully  per- 
formed, returns  a  reward  beyond  the  price 
of  its  service,  in  its  reflective  effects  upon  our 
own    spirits ;   that  toil   is    neither  an  injury. 


2  THE    DIGNITY    OF    LABOR. 

nor  a  disgrace,  but  that  every  worker  is  per- 
forming a  holy  task  in  the  lowliest  toil,  if  he 
performs  his  task  in  the  right  spirit,  and  with 
the  true  aim.  This  spirit  and  this  object  I 
shall  have  much  to  say  about  before  finally 
leaving  the  subject ;  indeed,  I  may  frankly 
say  to  you,  that  over  and  above  the  belief 
that  I  may  speak  some  practical  and  sober 
words  which  may  be  of  service,  I  am  prompt- 
ed to  speak  to  you,  as  a  class  of  society,  by 
the  belief  that  false  views  of  labor  and  arti- 
ficial objections  to  honest  toil  lie  at  the  bot- 
tom of  most  of  our  great  social  problems,  and 
so  far  forth  are  legitimately  within  the  sphere 
of  the  thinker  and  the  religious  workman. 

Workingmen  —  the  men  who  toil  for  daily 
wages,  and  literally  eat  their  bread  in  the 
sweat  of  their  brow  —  have,  I  fear,  had  too 
little  assistance  from  the  pulpit.  They  have 
been  left  to  their  toil  and  their  temptations, 
while  theologians  have  struggled  for  specu- 
lative triumphs,  and  ecclesiastical  organiza- 
tions have  endeavored  to  attach  to  themselves 


THE    DIGNITY    OF    LABOK.  6 

the  wealth  and  influence  of  the  country.  And 
there  is  at  least  a  partial  palliation  for  this, 
in  the  fact  that  in  our  land,  especially  in  this 
Western  portion  of  it,  very  few  religious  soci- 
eties can  regard  themselves  as  in  a  permanent 
position.  We  have  no  State  Church,  —  and 
thank  God  for  it  I  for  we  escape  the  oppres- 
sions and  corruptions  which  grow  out  of  the 
union  of  religious  and  compulsory  taxation, 
—  and  under  our  voluntary  system,  some  gen- 
erations must  pass  before  our  churches  can 
be  in  a  position  of  independence.  I  acknowl- 
edge it  frankly,  religion  is  dependent  upon 
wealth  in  this  country.  But  that  is  not  equiv- 
alent to  saying  that  religion  need  become  ser- 
vile, or  that  the  clergy  are  necessarily  worship- 
pers of  the  rich  and  neglectful  of  the  less  pros- 
perous. It  does  involve  the  statement,  how- 
ever, that,  in  an  early  stage  of  religious  effort, 
the  absolute  necessity  for  gaining  sufficient 
wealth  to  base  the  churches  on  a  firm  founda- 
tion will  lead  to  the  danger  of  overlooking 
classes  of  society  which  need  the  co-operation 
of  the  pulpit  and  the  educating  and  hallow- 
ing influences  of  Christ's  Gospel. 


THE    DIGNITY    OF    LABOR. 


Then,  again,  seeing  the  necessity  for  pecu- 
niary means  manifested  by  the  churches  in 
the  sale  and  rental  of  pews,  some  per- 
sons, especially  those  who  are  not  able  to 
acquire  much  wealth  by  their  labor,  are  very 
apt  to  regard  all  religion,  and  everything 
emanating  from  the  pulpit,  as  savoring  of 
Mammon.  They  do  not  go  to  church,  be- 
cause they  suppose  fine  clothing,  white-kid 
gloves,  and  foppery  in  general,  to  be  pre- 
requisites for  admission  there :  they  regard 
preaching  too  often  as  a  luxury,  which  the 
capitalist,  the  physician,  the  lawyer,  and  per- 
haps the  master-mechanic,  may  indulge  in, 
because  they  can  afford  to  pay  for  it ;  but  for 
them,  Sunday  and  Idleness  are  synonymes, 
and  they  cherish  an  antagonism  against  the 
pulpit,  which  must  necessarily  make  its  influ- 
ence in  their  favor  very  slight  indeed.  Per- 
haps you  will  say  that  this  state  of  things 
ought  not  to  be  ;  and  I  agi'ee  with  you :  but 
it  does  exist ;  and  something  must  be  done 
to  obviate  it,  or  the  great  truths  of  life  re- 
vealed in   the   Gospel   of    Christ  will   prove 


THE    DIGNITY    OF    LABOR.  *' 

powerless  and  ineffectual  to  supply  the  world's 
pressing  need. 

And  what  can  be  done,  but  the  abandon- 
ment on  the  part  of  the  pulpit  of  any  scru- 
ples of  professional  etiquette,  —  the  doffing, 
if  need  be,  of  the  white  cravat,  and  the  fore- 
going of  scholastic  precision  and  nicety  of 
expression,  —  the  sacrifice  of  all  attempts  at 
merely  literary  elegance,  and  a  descent  to  the 
realities  and  commonplace  experiences  of  the 
workshop,  and  the  mill,  and  the  foundery  ? 
Christ's  revelation  is  addressed  as  much  to 
men  of  toil,  with  the  oil  and  rust  of  the  ma- 
chine-shop, or  the  dust  of  the  mill,  permeating 
their  clothing  and  soiling  their  skin,  as  to 
dilettanti  dwellers  in  Fifth-Avenue  palaces, 
who  have  been  raised  above  the  sphere  of  the 
producer  by  lucky  speculations  in  worthless 
patent-medicines,  or  unprincipled  frauds,  com- 
mencing with  "woolly  horses"  and  ending 
with  Crystal  Palaces  and  pernicious  and 
brazen-faced  Biographies. 

Labor  is  of  God's  appointment ;  and  there- 
fore, we  must  think,  wisely  and  benevolently 


6  THE    DIGNITY    OF    LABOR. 

ordained.  I  know  that  some  persons  regard 
its  muscular  demands  as  the  result  of  sin  and 
curse  ;  but  I  know,  also,  that  in  the  Bible, 
which  you  and  I  can  read  for  ourselves,  it  is 
said  of  the  first  man,  that  his  Maker  placed 
him  in  the  garden  of  Eden  to  dress  it  and  to 
keep  it.  So  that  it  would  seem  to  have  the 
sanction  of  Scripture,  when  we  say  that  labor 
is  an  ordinance  of  God  for  our  highest  and 
best  welfare.  Indeed,  if  we  needed  addi- 
tional proof  of  the  fitness  and  necessity  of 
labor,  the  experience  of  every  workingman 
could  furnish  it.  Toil  is  imposed  upon  us 
not  less  by  our  spiritual  than  by  our  physical 
necessities.  A  lazy  man  is  at  once  the  most 
despicable  and  the  most  miserable  of  objects  ; 
and  a  man  willing  to  labor,  and  without  occu- 
pation, is  the  most  unhappy  of  mortals.  That 
which  is  thus  demanded  by  our  existence,  out 
of  which  all  strength,  and  all  beauty,  and  all 
true  life,  are  developed,  must  be  of  God  ;  and 
that  which  is  of  God  is  holy  ;  and  so,  rightly 
viewed,  every  muscular  effort  will  be  a  relig- 
ious service,^  and  every  workshop  a  religious 


THE    DIGNITY    OF    LABOR.  7 

temple.  You  cannot,  if  you  would,  separate 
the  interests  of  the  world  from  your  toil ;  you 
cannot  labor  without  result ;  you  do  not  strike 
a  blow  on  the  anvil,  or  erect  a  block  of  stone 
to  its  place  in  a  new  building,  without  relig- 
ious significance  and  religious  result.  We 
cannot  separate  our  individual  interests  from 
the  progress  of  the  race  ;  nor  can  we  labor, 
even  though  our  toil  be  dictated  by  our  desire 
to  shun  poverty,  without  contributing  out  of 
our  muscular  or  mental  exertion  to  some  pur- 
pose of  beauty,  or  of  supply,  which  the  over- 
ruling Providence  will  harmonize  into  a  grand 
mosaic  of  human  blessing. 

Labor  is  honorable,  for  it  is  identified  with 
our  wants  and  their  supply,  with  our  health 
and  enjoyment,  and  has  a  power  over  the 
spirit  in  working  off  the  excess  of  animal 
demand,  and  so  clears  the  breast  of  perilous 
stuff.  Labor  is  blessed,  for  it  is  ordained  of 
God,  and  bound  up  with  all  beauty  and  all 
growth  and  vital  action.  God  himself,  the 
Master  Workman  of  the  universe,  hallows  it 
in  his  superintendence  of  his  most  wonderful 


8  THE    DIGNITY    OF    LABOR. 

mechanism  for  the  blessing  of  his  children ; 
and  his  mechanical  skill  may  be  recognized  in 
every  prau'ie-flower  and  in  every  snow-flake, 
and  his  exertions  seen  when  the  forces  of  na- 
ture are  m'ged  through  the  channels  of  vege- 
table life,  and  the  bare  forests  and  brown  grass 
shoot  forth  afresh  their  foliage,  and  don  again 
their  mantle  of  living  hues ;  when  the  ice- 
bound streams,  impelled  by  some  mysterious 
agency  which  we  call  gravitation,  burst  their 
icy  barriers,  and,  obeying  a  common  tendency, 
flow  into  a  common  ocean.  It  is  customary 
to  speak  of  God  as  a  Creator  in  the  past ; 
but  who  thinks  worthily  of  what  God's  activity 
and  energy  are  daily  accomplishing  ?  Who 
recognizes  in  the  mechanical  arrangement  of 
the  solar  system,  and  the  grouping  of  the 
clouds,  the  lessons  which  might  be  learned  of 
the  dignity  of  labor,  and  the  dependence  of 
the  beautiful  upon  toil  and  exertion  ?  From 
the  necessity  of  things,  labor  is  universal. 
We  cannot  escape  it  if  we  would ;  and  when 
we  think  we  have  risen  above  it,  we  may  find 
it  harder  work  to  "  kill  time  "  than  it  was  to 


THE    DIGNITY    OF    LABOR.  9 

be  busy  about  our  mechanical  or  mercantile 
employments.  Look  at  "  Young  America " 
for  proof  of  this  ;  glance  for  a  moment  at  that 
pitiable  class  who,  in  sad  irony,  are  called  "  fast 
young  men."  (I  would  not  have  you  look 
longer  than  a  moment,  lest  you  should  be  led 
to  embrace  the  theory  which  considers  man 
as  the  result  of  vegetable  life,  and  depicts  his 
regular  development,  as  first  mushroom,  then 
muscle,  then  fish,  then  bird,  then  ape,  and 
last,  man.)  But  look  in  soberness  at  this 
lamentable  class  of  human  creatures,  whose 
highest  ambition  is  to  drive  a  nobler  animal 
than  themselves  ;  to  talk  big-sounding  words ; 
brawl  in  bar-rooms  ;  and  die  without  a  nobler 
trait  of  character  than  the  horses  and  dogs 
which  they  abuse.  What  is  the  secret  of  the 
abundance  of  this  class  of  young  men  in 
our  large  cities  ?  Why  is  it,  that  the  sons  of 
grave  and  respectable  votaries  and  possessors 
of  wealth  become  thus  de-humanized  ?  Why 
is  it,  that  when  our  old  men  have  toiled,  and 
are  toiling,  at  honest  occupations,  their  sons 
affect  to  look   with    contempt   upon   a   hard 


10  THE    DIGNITY    OF   LABOR. 

hand  or  a  working-jacket?  Why  is  it  that 
the  wives  and  daughters  of  retired  mouse-trap 
makers  affect  to  live  in  such  style  as  is  only 
pitiable  in  the  European  descendants  from  the 
feudal  robbers  who  bore  a  red  hand  upon 
their  escutcheons  as  a  token  of  their  nobility  ? 
Is  not  the  difficulty  to  be  solved  by  the  fact 
that  labor  has  been  degraded  from  its  proper 
position  in  this  most  republican  country  ? 
that  it  has  been  made  a  badge  of  disgrace 
instead  of  a  credential  of  honor  ?  Do  you  not 
think  that  the  young  men  of  whom  I  have 
spoken  would  be  vastly  more  happy,  and  in- 
finitely more  respectable,  if  they  lived  for  some 
purpose  of  usefulness  ?  And  would  they  not 
do  so,  if  it  was  in  the  world's  esteem  (I  mean 
the  fashionable  world)  more  respectable  to  be 
an  honest  laborer  than  a  swaggering  idler  ? 
O,  depend  upon  it,  there  was  wisdom  in  that 
Jewish  proverb,  touching  the  propriety  of  an 
early  induction  into  habits  of  industry  :  "  He 
who  does  not  teach  his  son  a  trade,  teaches 
him  to  steal." 

I  know  there  is  such  a  thing  as  excessive 


THE    DIGNITY    OF    LABOR.  U 

toil ;  an  abuse  of  labor  ;  a  continuance  of  ex- 
treme application  which  destroys  both  body 
and  spirit.  And  whether  this  demand  comes 
from  cupidity  or  ambition,  from  ourselves  or 
from  others,  it  is  wrong.  Society  has  no  right 
to  compel  men,  who  work^  faithfully,  to  labor 
so  intensely  for  food  and  raiment  and  shelter 
that  the  mind  and  heart  must  go  naked  and 
famishing.  Of  the  two,  however,  the  life  of 
extreme  toil  is  preferable  to  that  of  those  who 
rise  in  the  morning  with  nothing  to  do,  and  re- 
tire at  night  with  the  consciousness  of  having 
accomplished  it.  But  the  extremes  are  both 
wrong,  and  are  working  fearful  injury  to  the 
interests  of  society,  undermining  religion  and 
sapping  our  national  and  republican  integrity. 
Labor  is  neither  a  disgrace  nor  a  curse.  It 
is  the  sacrament  of  life  for  our  spiritual  bene- 
diction. We  may  partake  of  it  lovingly,  and 
reap  its  more  than  golden  reward,  in  th^  quick 
pulsations  of  purity  and  rectitude  which  it  will 
urge  through  our  spiritual  life  ;  or  endure  it 
complainingly,  and  feel  its  reasonable  demands 
to  be  a  heavier  yf^k^  than  we  can  bear  ;  but 


12  THE    DIGNITY    OF    LABOR. 

partake  of  it  we  must,  or  the  currents  of  our 
life  will  flag,  and  forget  to  throb  with  their 
healthful  and  strengthening  influences. 

But  perhaps  you  will  say  to  me,  that  all 
do  not  labor,  and  that  while  one  man  tugs 
at  the  printing-press,  and  another  spends  his 
strength  in  striking  the  anvil,  there  are  some 
who  are  exempt  from  toil,  and  have  little 
to  do  but  to  speak  a  few  words,  or  to  draw 
up  a  legal  document,  or  to  prescribe  a  rem- 
edy for  disease.  You  will  point  me  perhaps 
to  the  Professions,  and  to  the  Fine  Arts, 
as  evidences  that  men  do  live  without  toil, 
(as  if  the  proof  that  men  do  exist  without 
labor  were  evidence  of  its  propriety!)  and  fail- 
ing to  substantiate  the  positions  drawn  from 
these  fallacies,  —  for  they  are  fallacies,  —  you 
will  recur  to  that  fancied  citadel  of  agrarian- 
ism,  the  iniquity  of  capital,  and  shout,  with  the 
French  Socialists,  "  Property  is  a  robbery ! " 
Let  me,  therefore,  speak  to  you,  as  I  have  abil- 
ity, of  the  identity  of  Labor  with  the  Profes- 
sions and  with  the  Fine  Arts. 

Among   workingmen,  and  especially  with 


THE    DIGNITY    OF    LABOR.  13 

mechanic  apprentices,  the  impression  has  pre- 
vailed, that  a  professional  man  enjoys  an  im- 
munity from  labor  ;  their  ideas  of  professional 
toil  are  all  limited  to  the  preparation  for  a 
diploma  or  admission  to  the  bar;  and  these 
once  obtained,  and  the  office  taken,  and  the 
sign  hung  out,  they  think  there  is  little  for  the 
physician  and  the  lawyer  to  do  but  to  sit  still 
and  allow  the  money  of  the  laboring  man  to 
flow  into  their  pockets.  As  to  the  clergyman, 
it  has  become  a  pretty  well  settled  theory,  that 
he  only  needs  to  think  himself  "  called  "  to 
live  without  labor,  and  his  work  is  done,  —  if 
he  can  find  a  parish  to  pay  him  for  reprodu- 
cing old  sermons,  and  uttering  prayers  that 
any  one  can  learn  from  a  book. 

Now  let  me  ask  you  what  it  is  that  consti- 
tutes labor.  All  toil,  you  know,  is  not  alike  : 
there  are  some  kinds  of  mechanical  employ- 
ments which  demand  less  muscular  effort  than 
others.  The  watchmaker  uses  a  much  lighter 
hammer  than  the  blacksmith,  and  the  engraver 
works  with  a  finer  chisel  than  the  stone- 
mason ;  and  yet  all  these  I  suppose  may  lay 


14  THE    DIGNITY    OF    LABOR. 

claim  to  be  called  mechanics,  and  to  earn  their 
bread  by  honest  toil.  Where,  then,  shall  we 
find  the  miity  of -labor  ?  Clearly,  it  is  not  in 
the  amount  of  muscular  demand. 

Do  you  define  it  as  production  ?  Is  it  that 
mechanical  or  agricultural  skill  which  produces 
the  comforts  of  life  ?  But  from  what  kind  of 
skill  will  you  exclude  production  ?  The  print- 
er produces  books  and  newspapers,  and  the 
author  produces  the  thoughts  that  make  the 
printer's  work  something  more  than  lifeless 
paper  and  ink.  The  copyist,  too,  produces 
manuscript  which  may  prevent  fraud  and  in- 
justice. The  truth  is,  every  man  who  is  em- 
ployed, whether  with  the  head  or  hand,  is  a 
laborer  and  a  producer.  The  physician  pro- 
duces health,  and  the  lawyer  produces  peace 
and  security.  Nor  only  so,  but  professional  men 
must  toil,  and  toil  long  years  after  the  comple- 
tion of  their  novitiate,  or  sink  to  the  position 
of  pettifoggers  and  quacks.  If  you  have  a  sick 
child,  to  whom  will  you  apply  for  help  ?  Is 
it  not  to  the  skilful  physician  ?  And  do  you 
dream  that  skill  in  mitigating  disease  is  some- 


THE    DIGNITY    OF    LABOR.  15 

thing  extraneous,  which  distils  upon  a  man 
from  the  clouds,  or  comes  to  him  by  spending 
a  year  or  two  of  his  boyhood  at  a  public  insti- 
tution, or  in  a  private  office,  reading  a  few 
pages,  and  perhaps  dissecting  a  few  limbs? 
If  you  have  property  or  reputation  at  stake, 
to  whom  do  you  go  for  assistance  ?  Is  it  not 
to  the  man  who  is  versed  in  legal  tactics,  and 
who  carries  Blackstone  and  Coke  and  Story 
in  his  head,  and  rectitude  and  prudence  in  his 
heart  ?  But  do  you  imagine  that  three  or  four 
years  of  desultory  reading,  or  of  bodily  contact 
with  books  bound  in  calf-skin,  will  make  a 
Solon,  or  a  Lycurgus,  or  a  Demosthenes  out  of 
an  unsophisticated  country  boy  ?  Depend  upon 
it,  my  friends,  the  fancied  antagonism  of  head- 
work  and  handicraft  is  without  reason.  We  are 
all  laborers  ;  and  if  some  wear  working-jackets 
while  others  don  broadcloth,  it  is  because  it  is 
fitting  that  every  man  should  array  himself  in 
the  garments  which  are  best  adapted  to  his 
toil.  And  do  not  dream  that  muscular  exer- 
tion is  the  only  labor ;  for  there  is  many  a 
studious  man  who  would  gladly  exchange  his 


16  THE    DIGNITY    OF    LABOR. 

aching  head,  and  excited  nervous  system,  and 
sleepless  nights,  for  the  clear  brain,  and  healthy 
tone,  and  sweet  repose,  that  of  themselves 
more  than  compensate  for  the  severest  muscu- 
lar exertion.  Indeed,  the  balance  of  ease  is  in 
many  respects  in  favor  of  the  men  who  follow 
the  plough,  or  push  the  plane,  or  carry  the  hod 
from  morning  till  night.  Their  labor  must  at 
least  be  limited,  and  it  is  varied  with  intervals 
of  rest ;  but  when  once  you  set  the  brain  in 
action,  you  have  accomplished  the  mechanical 
dream  of  perpetual  motion.  Headwork,  my 
friends,  knows  no  ten-hour  regulation ;  it  can- 
not be  set  aside  when  the  sun  goes  down,  or 
suspended  on  account  of  the  weather;  but  its 
demands  are  ceaseless,  and  no  compensation 
of  wealth  can  restore  the  balance,  and  bring 
the  head-worker  to  an  equality  of  ease  with 
the  handicraftsman.  I  know  individuals  may 
be  found  in  all  departments  who  use  a  pro- 
fessional position  as  a  shield  for  their  laziness  ; 
whose  highest  literary  ambition  is  to  be  con- 
versant with  the  insipid  productions  of  brain- 
less boys  and  masculine  women ;  who  toil  ex- 


THE    DIGNITY    OF    LABOR.  17 

cessively  to  master  the  sublimities  of  Fanny 
Fern,  and  Letitia  Locust,  and  the  rest  of  that 
class  of  alliterative  prodigies;  who  cultivate 
their  sensibilities  by  perusing  incessantly  the 
yellow-covered  trash  which  dishonors  the 
name  of  literature,  and  store  their  capacious 
minds  with  the  monstrous  improbabilities  of 
sickly  sentimentalism.  I  know  individuals 
may  be  found  who  are  too  slothful  to  become 
skilled  in  their  profession,  and  who  will  im- 
peril the  lives  and  property  of  their  fellows  by 
their  ignorance ;  who  act  from  purely  merce- 
nary motives,  and  with  no  real  professional 
zeal.  I  know  men  may  sometimes  be  found 
who  will  venture  to  handle  the  interests  of 
religion,  and  dare  to  deal  with  the  momentous 
truths  of  God,  of  the  soul,  and  of  the  immor- 
tal life,  because  they  are  too  slothful  to  plough, 
too  proud  to  beg,  and  too  ignorant  to  do  any- 
thing but  to  "  preach  "  the  "  Everlasting  Gos- 
pel "  ;  and  all  these  (save  the  mark  !)  are  called 
professional  men,  —  Esquires,  Doctors,  and 
Reverends.  But,  bear  in  mind,  all  lawyers 
are  not  rogues,  nor  all  physicians  charlatans, 


18  THE    DIGNITY    OF    LABOR. 

nor  all  preachers  dolts  who  have  adopted  that 
profession  as  a  last  resort  to  obtain  a  living. 
But  what  then  ?  Are  there  no  lazy  mechan- 
ics who  disgrace  their  calling  ?  Are  there  no 
workingmen  who  will  shirk  their  task,  if  they 
are  not  watched  ?  And  yet  would  it  be  just, 
for  the  sake  of  these,  to  deny  the  skilful 
mechanic  and  faithful  laborer  his  title  to  the 
merit  of  belonging  to  the  class  of  producers  ? 
A  true  man  feels  that  life  is  something  more 
than  a  scramble  for  wealth,  or  an  opportunity 
for  vice,  or  a  thing  of  sloth ;  and  whether  his 
pulses  throb  beneath  homespun  or  are  covered 
with  "  purple  and  fine  linen,"  he  will  be  a 
worker.  The  true  professional  man  is  as 
much,  in  his  sphere,  a  worker,  as  the  lowliest 
truckman  or  deck-hand  is  in  his.  A  true  pro- 
fessional man  will  toil,  without  a  master,  as 
hard  as  any  hod-carrier  or  coal-digger.  We 
are  all  bound  up  in  a  brotherhood  of  labor, 
and  in  a  unity  of  interest;  and  the  profes- 
sional drone  is  no  more  respectable  than  a 
lazy  mechanic  or  an  idling  laborer. 

Let  us  now  carry  this  tenor  of  thought  into 


THE    DIGNITY    OF    LABOK.  19 

an  examination  of  the    mutual  relations    of 
Labor  and  the  Fine  Arts. 

Art  is  defined  by  a  German  writer  (Profes- 
sor Thiersch)  as  all  representations  of  the 
beautiful ;  and  a  master-mind  of  our  own  age 
and  country  has  defined  Beauty  to  be  adap- 
tation. Certainly  there  can  be  no  beauty 
without  adaptation.  Adajbtation  evidences 
design,  and  these,  it  has  long  been  conceded, 
analogically  infer  evidence  of  mind.  If  we 
find  adaptation  in  Nature,  we  at  once  refer  it 
to  the  exercise  of  will ;  and  as  in  Nature,  so 
in  the  Fine  Arts,  there  can  be  no  beauty  with- 
out that  designed  adaptation  which  is  of  itself 
evidence  of  exertion.  Beauty  as  a  sentiment, 
may  float  in  the  mind  ;  but  Art  as  a  fact,  the 
expression  of  Beauty,  the  materialism  of  the 
sentiment,  must  involve  Labor.  All  repre- 
sentation of  the  beautiful,  we  are  told,  is  Art ; 
and  I  think  the  definition  is  good  enough  for 
our  purpose.  Certainly,  then,  there  can  be  no 
representation  of  Beauty  without  the  expen- 
diture of  mental  and  muscular  toil.  Art, 
we  may  say,  is  the  expression,  the  body,  of 


20  THE    DIGNITY    OF   LABOR. 

which  Beauty  is  the  soul;  and  the  difference 
between  a  beautiful  creation  and  a  clumsy 
one,  is  the  difference  between  an  inspired 
vitality  and  a  lifeless  and  uncouth  frame- 
work. 

Now,  I  have  uttered  these  thoughts  because 
I  wish  you  to  recognize  the  unity  and  univer- 
sality of  all  Labor.  This  spirit  of  Beauty, 
which  is  the  inspiration  of  the  Fine  Arts,  and 
which  is  dependent  upon  toil  for  its  expression, 
is  not  limited  to  painting  and  sculpture,  but 
it  may  be  felt  and  evidenced  in  the  most 
monotonous  of  mechanical  employments, — 
the  same  in  essence,  but  not  in  degree,  as  in 
the  most  sublime  results  of  Phidias's  chisel 
and  Raffael's  brush.  Art  and  Beauty  may 
have  place  in  the  commonest  calls  for  skill ; 
and  in  nothing  can  they  be  more  clearly  evi- 
denced than  in  that  very  substantial  and  com- 
monplace occurrence,  —  house-building.  In- 
deed, it  is  true  that  "  Beauty  is  much  shown 
in  architecture,"  and  no  other  art  or  employ- 
ment has  more  significance,  for  it  is  a  token 
of  the  inward  life.     "  Man  skulking  in  a  hut 


THE    DIGNITY    OF    LABOR.  21 

is  the  same  being  whose  architecture  swells,  as 
his  soul  swells,  into  the  temple,  the  fortress, 
and  the  palace  "  ;  in  all  he  is  the  same,  but  his 
creations  of  brick  or  stone  may  tell  his  inward 
life-progress. 

Let  me  appeal  now  to  your  experience  for 
confirmation  of  the  identity  of  Art  and  Labor. 
I  would  appeal  to  the  lowliest  worker,  and  ask 
him  if,  beyond  the  price  of  his  labor,  and  be- 
yond the  pride  of  accomplishing  better  work 
than  an  inferior  workman,  there  is  not  a 
certain  love  of  the  work  itself  which  inspires 
him  to  seek  after  excellence  ?  I  know  he 
will  tell  me  there  is.  And  what  is  it  but 
that  beauty,  that  essence  of  art,  which  in- 
spires the  sculptor  and  the  painter,  that  thus 
strengthens  the  workingman  in  his  drudgery  ? 
And  what  is  this  but  a  testimony  that  all  art 
is  the  result  of  toil,  and  all  toil  may  be  art  ? 
Indeed,  the  Fine  Arts  are  the  outgrowth  of 
the  search  for  excellence  in  toil.  Formerly,  in 
Europe,  the  mechanical  occupations  were  con- 
fined to  women  and  slaves.  Refinement,  how- 
ever, in  the  course  of  time,  demanded  greater 


22  THE    DIGNITY    OF   LABOR. 

skill  than  can  be  expected  from  those  whose 
task  is  compulsory ;  and  in  the  tenth  century 
freemen  began  to  employ  themselves  in  me- 
chanical arts,  and  the  spirit  of  beauty,  fos- 
tered by  freedom,  became  developed  until  it 
was  honorable  to  be  a  skilful  handicraftsman, 
and  the  toil  of  the  workshop  became  blended 
with  the  Perseus  and  Medusa  of  Benvenuto 
Cellini,  the  Last  Supper  of  Da  Vinci,  and  the 
Theseus  of  Donatelli. 

And  so  one  may  say  of  Labor,  as  of  Art, 
that  it  is  immortal.  It  erects  its  own  monu- 
ment, as  the  record  of  the  groaning  toil  of  the 
hundred  thousand  who,  according  to  Herodo- 
tus, were  employed  twenty  years  in  building 
the  Pyramids,  which  still  stand,  while  the 
tyrant  who  extorted  their  toil  has  become  a 
perplexity  and  a  myth.  The  Sphynx  and  the 
Pyramids  may  be  to  all  time  a  riddle,  but  that 
human  muscle  and  human  skill  were  exercised 
there,  is  as  palpable  as  the  colossal  proportions 
and  majestic  symmetry  of  both  these  marvels. 
Nor  only  so,  but  all  toil  reaches  beyond  the 
temporary  and  decaying,  out  into  the  immor- 


THE    DIGNITY    OF    LABOR.  23 

tal  and  infinite.  You  cannot,  if  you  would, 
limit  the  results  of  your  labor  to  the  present. 
They  will  react  upon  your  own  spirits,  and 
through  these  upon  the  generations  to  come, 
and  upon  your  own  immortal  life.  As  you 
cherish  integrity  and  industry,  without  crin- 
ging or  niggardliness,  your  characters  shall 
grow  strong,  and  your  life  reach  out  beyond 
the  workshop  into  the  Temple  of  God. 

Finally,  let  me  entreat  you  to  receive  and 
adopt  as  your  own  the  sentiment  that  "  all 
labor  is  fitting  and  honorable," — fitting,  be- 
cause "  the  Great  Ordainer  has  not  dispensed 
with  it."  "  The  world  itself,"  says  an  eloquent 
pleader  for  Labor,*  "  might  have  been  a 
mighty  machinery  for  the  production  of  all 
that  man  wants.  The  motion  of  the  globe 
upon  its  axis  might  have  been  the  power  to 
move  that  world  of  machinery.  Ten  thou- 
sand wheels  within  wheels  might  have  been 
at  work,  ten  thousand  processes  more  curious 
and  more  complicated  than  man  can  devise 
might  have  been  going  forward  without  man's 

*  Dr.  Dewev. 


24  THE    DIGNITY    OF    LABOK. 

aid.  Houses  might  have  risen  like  exhala- 
tions, —  gorgeous  furniture  might  have  been 
placed  within  them,  —  soft  couches  and  lux- 
urious banquets  spread  by  unseen  hands, — 
and  man,  clothed  with  fabrics  of  Nature's 
weaving  richer  than  imperial  purple,  might 
have  disported  himself  in  these  Elysian  pal- 
aces. '  Fair  scene ! '  I  imagine  you  are  say- 
ing ;  '  fortunate  for  us  had  it  been  the  scene 
ordained  for  human  life.'  But  where  then, 
tell  me,  had  been  human  energy,  perseverance, 
patience,  virtue,  heroism?  Cut  off  at  one 
blow  from  the  world,  and  mankind  had  sunk 
to  a  crowd  —  nay,  far  beneath  a  crowd  — of 
Asiatic  voluptuaries.  No,  it  had  not  been 
fortunate  ;  better  that  the  earth  be  given  to 
man  as  a  dark  mass  whereon  to  labor ;  bet- 
ter that  rude  and  unsightly  materials  be  pro- 
vided in  the  ore-bed  and  the  forests,  for  him  to 
fashion  into  splendor  and  beauty." 

It  is  time  that  opprobrium  of  toil  were  done 
away,  for  that  opprobrium  is  a  relic  of  the 
feudal  days,  "when  serfs  labored,  and  gentle- 
men were  known  by  their  skill  in  fighting  and 
feasting.-' 


THE    DIGXITY    OF    LABOR.  25 

Ee  not  ashamed  of  toil,  for  it  is  honorable. 
Be  not  ashamed  of  the  "  dingy  workshop  and 
dusty  labor-field,  —  of  the  hard  hand,  scarred 
with  service  more  honorable  than  that  of  war, 
' —  of  the  soiled  and  weather-stained  garments, 
on  which  Mother  Earth  has  stamped,  midst 
sun  and  rain,  midst  fire  and  steam,  her 
own  heraldic  honors.  Be  not  ashamed  of 
these  tokens  and  titles,  and  envious  of  the 
flaunting  robes  of  imbecile  idleness  and  van- 
^  ity";  for  to  be  ashamed  of  honest  toil  "is 
treason  to  Nature,  impiety  to  Heaven,  and 
breaking  God's  great  ordinances.  Toil,  toil, 
either  of  the  brain,  of  the  heart,  or  of  the 
hand,  is  the  only  true  manhood,  the  only 
true  nobility." 


LECTURE    II 


MUTUAL    RELATIONS     OF    LABOR    AND     CAPITAL. 

THRIFT     AND     FORETHOUGHT. SAYINGS. NE- 
CESSITY    FOR    FAITH    IN    HUMAN    INTEGRITY. 

"  In  getting  riches,  ye  musten  flee  idleness  ;  and  aftenvarde  ye  shulen 
usen  the  riches  -which  ye  have  geten  by  youre  wit  and  by  your  travail,  in 
such  manner,  that  men  hold  you  not  too  scarce,  ne  too  sparing,  ne  fool 
large,  that  is  to  say  over  large  a  spender ;  for  right  as  men  blamen  an 
araritious  man  because  of  his  scarcity  and  chincery,  in  the  same  -vrise  he 
is  to  blame  that  spendeth  over  largely." 

"  In  getting  of  your  riches,  and  in  using  of  -em,  ye  shulen  alway  have 
three  things  in  youre  heart,  that  is  to  say,  our  Lord  God,  conscience,  and 
good  name.  First  ye  shulen  have  God  in  youre  heart,  and  for  no  riches 
ye  shulen  do  nothing  which  may  in  any  manner  displease  God  that  is 

youre  Creator  and  Maker And  Cassiodore  saith  that  it  is  a  sign  of 

a  gentle  heart,  when  a  man  loveth  and  desireth  to  have  a  good  name."  — 
Chaucer. 

Before  proceeding  further,  it  may  be  well 
to  notice  a  possible  objection  to  the  course  I 
am  pursuing,  in  offering  topics  of  such  practi- 
cal influence  upon  Sunday  afternoon,  in  prefer- 
ence to  calling  your  attention  to  them  upon 
an   evening  during  the  week.     I  pursue  this 


MUTUAL  RELATIONS  OF  LABOR  AND  CAPITAL.   27 

course  designedly,  because  I  wish  you  to  iden- 
tify religion  with  your  life  and  with  your  la- 
bor. Whatever  Christian  words  I  may  have 
to  speak,  —  whatever  department  of  life  I  may 
wish  to  admonish, —  I  should  deeply  regret  the 
utterance  of  words  on  Monday  or  Wednes- 
day that  ought  not  to  be  spoken  on  Sunday. 
I  am  led  to  the  adoption  of  this  method  of 
presenting  Christian  truth,  by  the  belief  that 
there  are  pressing  needs  in  our  every-day  life 
which  call  for  the  toil  of  every  true  prophet. 
He  who  speaks  with  a  purpose,  and  who  speaks 
truly,  is  as  much  a  Christian  teacher  when 
dealing  with  the  present  interest  of  the  race, 
as  he  who  expounds  the  mysteries  of  theo- 
logical technicalities.  A  man  may  be  a  true 
prophet  without  a  garb  of  camel's  hair  or  a 
residence  in  the  desert,  and  he  may  be  a  wit- 
ness for  Christ  without  constantly  harping 
upon  theoretical  intricacies,  and  even  though 
he  descend  to  the  common  life  which  Chris- 
tianity was  designed  to  elevate  and  bless. 
Look  into  your  own  hearts,  and  out  upon  the 
world  about  you,  and  tell  me  if  there  are  not 


28  MUTUAL    PvELATIOXS    OF 

wrongs  and  evils  in  society  that  need  a  prophet- 
like earnestness  and  directness  of  exhortation  ? 
The  Christian  ministry,  and  the  Christian 
Church,  have  too  long  been  satisfied  to  find 
their  field  of  labor  in  the  interior  of  Africa,  or 
in  the  stars  ;  in  the  remote  past  with  Adam, 
or  in  the  still  remoter  future  of  speculative 
spiritual  condition.  There  is,  Christian  friends, 
a  great  living  cry  coming  from  the  present, — 
an  intensely  perplexing  problem  of  suffering  and 
sin  to  be  solved  now.  Out  of  your  workshops 
and  founderies.  —  out  of  your  steamboats  and 
ships,  —  from  your  wharves  and  warehouses, 
—  from  the  abodes  of  wealth  and  the  hovels 
of  poverty,  —  ascends  that  yearning  petition, 
"  Who  will  show  us  any  good  ?  "  And.  the 
Gospel,  and  those  speaking  for  the  Gospel, 
must  meet  this  demand,  —  must  satisfy  this 
craving,  —  must  solve  these  problems,  and 
show  the  coincidence  of  all  true  life  with  God 
and  the  Scriptures,  or  acknowledge  Revela- 
tion to  be  a  failure,  and  Christianity  insuffi- 
cient for  the  world's  extremity.  It  is  in 
vain  to  attempt   an   avoidance  of  this  ordeal. 


LABOR    AND    CAPITAL.  29 

Sooner  or  later  the  test  must  be  applied.  The 
same  difficulties  and  doubts  that  agitate  the 
minds  of  pagan  men  are  busily  at  work  in 
the  hearts  of  our  own  population,  and  gener- 
alities will  not  suffice  ;  —  we  must  be  explicit, 
and  carry  the  Gospel  teachings  into  the  black- 
smith's shop  and  out  on  to  the  farm,  and  set 
them  up  paramount  there,  or  our  religion  will 
be  a  thing  of  selfishness,  and  while  evangel- 
izing the  antipodes,  our  own  kindred  and 
townsmen  will  go  hungry  and  famishing  for 
the  living  bread,  and  become  as  destitute  of 
the  true  Christian  feeling  and  principles  as 
the  dwellers  of  Paris  in  the  worst  days  of 
infidel  anarchy.  I  do  not  indeed  advocate  a 
police  Christianity,  to  restrain  ignorance  and 
vice,  but  a  true  co-operation  of  religion  with 
human  experiences  and  human  wants  as  they 
exist,  which,  without  cant  or  selfishness,  shall 
demonstrate  the  eternal  fitness  of  the  Gospel 
for  men's  struggling  work-day  lives. 

Closely  connected   with   the   topics  of  the 
previous  Lecture  are  the  mutual  relations  of 

3* 


30  MUTUAL    RELATIONS    OF 

Labor  and  Capital.  I  wish  to  show  you  that 
the  antagonism  sometimes  maintained  be- 
tween the  laborer  and  the  capitalist  is  not 
only  improper,  but  unnatural ;  that  whatever 
is  done  by  either  class  to  injure  the  other  is 
wrong,  and  must  react  upon  the  aggressor ; 
that  there  are  natural  interdependencies  be- 
tween them,  which  no  fanaticism  of  the  pre- 
tended friends  of  the  workingman  can  destroy, 
and  no  impulse  of  selfish  gain  on  the  part  of 
the  capitalist  can  ignore. 

The  antagonists  of  capital  always  seem  to 
forget  the  indebtedness  of  the  laborer  for  his 
employment  to  that  very  accumulation  of  cap- 
ital which  they  so  fiercely  denounce.  Now, 
suppose  their  wildest  desires  realized,  property 
decla^red  to  be  a  robbery,  and  the  moneyed 
capital  of  the  country  portioned  out  pro  rata 
among  the  inhabitants ;  what  would  be  the 
effect  ?  In  a  large  city,  the  following  results 
would  inevitably  follow.  "  At  one  blow,  the 
banks,  insurance-offices,  and  other  financial  in- 
stitutions, would  tumble  to  the  ground.  The 
large  mercantile  houses,  which  give  employ- 


LABOR     AND    CAPITAL.  31 

ment  to  many  clerks,  porters,  draymen,  coop- 
ers, carpenters,  and  the  like,  would  dwindle 
into  small  retail  shops.  All  the  business 
which  now  rests  on  a  credit  basis  would 
cease.  Not  a  hammer  would  be  heard  in 
the  ship-yards.  The  silence  of  death  would 
replace  the  intolerable  but  productive  clatter 
of  the  founderies  and  machine-shops.  .All  the 
spindles  in  the  factories  would  stop  at  once. 
Dismantled  ships  would  deform  the  wharves. 
Idlers  and  vagabonds  would  throng  the  streets. 
Fresh  prisons  and  almshouses  would  be  need- 
ed, and  there  would  be  neither  funds  nor  credit 
to  build  them."  *  Such  is  but  a  faint  outline 
of  the  disastrous  consequences  of  carrying 
out  to  their  full  extent  the  principles  of  Fou- 
rier and  Proudhon.  Admitting  that  there  are 
great  evils  attendant  upon  the  accumulation 
of  capital,  this  destructive  and  antagonistic 
policy,  which  would  «.rray  in  a  class-warfare 
the  laborer  and  his  employer,  will  not,  I  am 
confident,  meet  and  remove  the  evils.  Far 
better  would  it  be,  that  each  should  learn  its 
*"  Dr.  Boardman. 


32  MUTUAL    RELATIONS    OF 

Christian  identity  with  the  other,  and  see  how 
interdependent  are  all  the  workers  upon  each 
other.  Nor  should  it  be  forgotten,  that  cap- 
ital is  not  necessarily  money,  but  that  every 
man  is  a  capitalist,  to  the  extent  of  his  instru- 
ments for  the  increase  of  values.  Thus,  even 
the  savage  is  a  capitalist,  to  the  extent  of  the 
weapons  by  which  he  procures  food,  and  the 
amount  of  food  which  he  possesses  to  enable 
him  to  live  until  more  can  be  obtained.  The 
tools  of  the  carpenter  and  shoemaker  con- 
stitute their  capital,  and  they  receive  their 
wages,  not  only  as  a  return  for  their  muscu- 
lar exertion,  —  which  again  is  capital,  —  but 
as  a  compensation  for  the  use  of  their  tools. 
Certainly,  without  his  tools  a  mechanic  could 
not  build  a  house  nor  make  a  pair  of  shoes  ; 
but  he  does  not  regard  himself  as  doing 
'unjustly,  because  he  obtains  compensation 
for  the  increased  vali»e  he  gives  the  raw 
material  by  the  skilful  application  of  his  in- 
struments. And  yet  the  men  who  will  ac- 
knowledge this,  will  tell  you  that  it  is  unjust 
for  the  capitalist  to  receive  compensation  for 


LABOR    AND     CAPITAL.  33 

the  increased  value  given  to  the  raw  material 
of  the  earth  and  the  elements  by  the  use  of 
his  instrument,  —  money.  For  money  is  but 
an  instrument,  —  a  representative  of  power 
to  meet  obligations,  —  a  token  by  which  the 
exchange  of  equivalents  is  facilitated ;  and 
the  capitalist  who  confines  his  operations  to 
the  limits  of  fair  enterprise  is  just  as  much  a 
producer  of  actual  wealth,  in  furnishing  means 
for  the  construction  of  railroads,  and  levees, 
and  buildings,  as  the  men  who  quarry  the 
stone  with  their  chisels  and  make  the  cuts 
and  embankments  with  their  shovels.  True, 
—  very  true,  —  it  does  not  seem  so  pleasant 
to  be  of  those  whose  only  capital  is  muscle  ; 
but  even  in  that  point  of  view,  you  find  differ- 
ences of  muscular  development  among  men, 
which  it  would  be  just  as  reasonable  to  rebel, 
against,  as  to  denounce  those  whom  Provi- 
dence has  blessed,  as  it  has  not  blessed  you 
and  me,  with  moneyed  capital.  The  truth  is, 
these  diversities  are  both  necessary  and  fitting ; 
and  the  Providence  which  ordained  them  has 
appointed  compensations  to  accompany  their 


34  MUTUAL    RELATIONS    OF 

inequalities.  Depend  upon  it,  the  capitalist 
is  a  man  of  toil,  as  truly  as  the  day-laborer ; 
and  if  he  is  a  man  of  selfishness,  recognizing 
no  Divine  significance  in  his  condition,  seeing 
no  religious  importance  and  mission  in  his 
command  of  means,  — Hving  for  his  wealth, 
and  seeking  only  its  increase,  —  with  no 
thought  of  God,  of  humanity,  and  of  duty, — 
ah,  my  friends,  if  he  is  such  a  man,  pity 
him!  for  he  needs  the  lowliest  man's  com- 
passion :  he  toils  harder,  and  for  poorer  pay, 
than  any  coal-digger.  But  I  belike  such 
men  are  seldom  found,  and  that  generally  the 
capitalist  and  merchant  act  from  motives  of 
integrity  higher  than  statutes  of  usury  and 
market-place  morality.  '  I  believe  —  nay,  I 
know  —  that  beneath  all  this  stir  of  seeming 
struggle  for  gain  there  throbs  a  generous  rec- 
ognition of  the  unity  of  human  life,  and  the 
interdependence  of  all  classes  for  blessing, 
culture,  and  happiness.  Christianity  is  rapidly 
taking  its  proper  position  in  the  Exchange ; 
and  much  of  the  wealth  which  results  from  a 
proper  and  legitimate   use  of  capital  is  con- 


LABOR     AND     CAPITAL.  35 

secrated,  not  only  to  the  technical  "  interests 
of  religion,"  but  to  those  interests  in  the  larger 
sense,  in  which  they  embrace  the  philanthropic 
and  educational  prosperity  of  the  accumulat- 
ing population  of  our  country.  If  one  needed 
an  argument  for  the  defence  of  capital  against 
sweeping  denunciation,  and  wished  to  find 
that  argument  near  home,  perhaps  there  could 
not  be  anything  better  required  than  the  facts 
of  the  Mercantile  Library  and  of  the  Wash- 
ington Institute  at  St.  Louis  ;  —  the  first  a 
noble  monument  of  Western  culture,  —  a  type 
of  the  generosity  with  which  Western  capital 
and  literature  go  hand  in  hand,  —  a  lasting 
memorial  of  the  love  of  art,  and  the  insight 
into  the  reality  of  existence,  as  it  centres  in 
the  beautiful  and  the  educating,  which  ani 
mates  the  mercantile  prosperity  of  that  city 
Whence  came  that  lofty  building,  which  rep 
resents  one  hundred  and  forty  thousand  dol 
lars  ?  How  is  it,  that  the  last  yearly  state 
ment  reports  twelve  thousand  volumes,  worth 
nineteen  thousand  dollars,  as  the  result  of  nine 
years'  existence  ?     Do  you  now  cry,  "  Capital 


36  MUTUAL    RELATIONS    OF 

is  a  robbery"?  Do  you  presume  to  assert 
that  the  root  of  all  this  is  in  selfishness  ?  that 
one  man's  contribution  of  thirty-six  thousand 
dollars  is  the  representation  of  so  much 
desire  to  ride  rough-shod  over  the  toiling 
masses  who  contribute  their  muscle  to  the 
triumphs  of  his  capital  ?  If  it  is  so,  it  is  a 
profounder  mystery  than  the  inequalities  of 
Providence,  which  place  one  man  in  a  bank- 
ing-house and  another  on  a  dray.  And  the 
other  institution  of  which  I  spoke  will  bear 
the  same  testimony  even  more  forcibly  ;  for 
it  commences  with  the  children,  and  provides 
a  thoroughly  practical  and  theoretical  training 
for  them,  —  and  capital  has  lately  been  quietly 
and  unostentatiously  providing  for  the  ex- 
penses, to  the  amount  of  some  forty  or  fifty 
thousand  dollars. 

Doubtless  there  are  responsibilities  which 
capital  does  not  always  recognize  as  it  ought 
to  do  ;  but  the  fault  lies  not  at  the  door  of 
capital,  but  belongs  to  those  who  abuse  it, — 
who  make  it  an  instrument  of  fraud  and  op- 
pression, instead  of  a  minister  of  blessing,  — 


LABOR     AND     CAPITAL.  37 

who  set  up  to  themselves  false  standards,  and 
follow  low  aims,  vainly  supposing  they  can 
separate  their  business  life  from  their  religious 
character ;  but  rely  upon  it,  they  who  do  so 
are  more  literally  serfs  to  their  unsatisfied  am- 
bitions, and  labor  for  a  harder  taskmaster, 
than  the  poor  whom  they  abuse.  Fuller,  an 
old  English  divine,  who  expressed  much  truth 
in  his  own  quaint  way,  has  left  the  follow- 
ing comment  upon  the  passage  of  Scripture, 
"  Your  gold  and  silver  is  cankered ;  and  the 
rust  of  them  shall  be  a  witness  against  you." 
"  The  same  word  in  the  Greek  (hs)  means 
both  rust  and  poison  ;  and  some  strong  poi- 
sons be  made  of  the  rust  of  metals,  but  none 
more  venomous  than  the  rust  of  money  in 
the  rich  man's  purse,  unjustly  detained  from 
the  laborer,  which  will  poison  and  infect  his 
whole  estate." 

Rely  upon  it,  my  friends,  there  is  a  unity 
of  mission  which  should  identify  capital  and 
labor.  The  workingman  ought  not  to  curse 
the  capitalist  for  his  wealth  ;  for  it  is  that 
wealth,  circulating  through  the  various  chan- 


38  MUTUAL    RELATIONS    OF 

nels  of  business,  which  gives  him  the  employ- 
ment by  which  he  earns  his  bread.  He  should 
not  object  to  the  reproductive  power  of  capi- 
tal ;  for  it  is  that  reproduction  which  stimu- 
lates its  investment  in  buildings,  and  boats, 
and  manufactures,  in  preference  to  allowing 
it  to  lie  idly  in  the  rich  man's  coffers,  and  so 
depriving  the  poor  man  of  his  share  of  its 
productiveness.  Indeed,  I  know  of  no  abuse 
of  capital  more  reprehensible  than  the  hoard- 
ing of  money,  —  the  burying  and  hiding  of 
specie,  by  which  its  vitalizing  power  is  with- 
held from  society.  The  man  who  hoards  his 
thousand  dollars,  or  his  one  or  two  hundreds, 
who  is  afraid  to  place  it  in  bank,  and  so 
over-conscientious  that  he  will  not  take  inter- 
est for  it,  is  a  greater  injury  to  society  than  he 
who  obtains  an  unusual  interest  for  his  capi- 
-tal ;  and  he  deserves  to  lose  it. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  capitalist  owes  it  to 
the  laborer,  to  esteem  him  as  something  more 
than  a  curiously  constructed  machine  of  mus- 
cles for  the  increase  of  his  gain.  He  owes  it 
to  every  workman  he  employs,  to  regard  him 


LABOR    AND    CAPITAL.  39 

as  a  human  being  ;  as  a  joint  heir  with  him 
to  the  discipline  of  the  present  and  to  the  im- 
mortality of  the  future. 

Too  often,  I  fear,  the  fact  of  the  laborer's 
manhood  and  spiritual  identity  with  the  capi- 
talist is  lost  sight  of ;  and  he  is  looked  upon, 
not  as  a  necessary  and  honorable  agent  in  the 
world's  advancement,  but  as  a  lower  order  of 
being,  who  is  dependent  upon  the  benevolence 
of  his  richer  and  more  prosperous  likeness  in 
human  clay.  But  without  the  laborer,  what 
would  capital  avail  ?  Where  would  be  your 
railroads,  without  those  sturdy  sons  of  toil 
who  make  them  ?  Who  would  build  your 
palaces,  if  labor  refused  to  perform  its  task  ? 
And  what  would  your  enterprise  accomplish, 
without  muscle  to  give  substance  to  your 
thought  ?  All  would  be  a  dream  and  an  air- 
castle.  It  is  labor  which  gives  reality  to  the 
conceptions  of  art,  and  which  carries  out  all 
the  projects  by  which  capital  is  enhanced.  It 
is  labor  to  which  we  owe  our  comfort :  our 
houses  are  built  by  it ;  we  warm  ourselves 
by    fires    made    of    the    fuel    which    toil    has 


40  MUTUAL    RELATIONS    OF 

extracted  from  the  caverns  of  the  earth  ;  it 
guides  our  ships,  that  come  freighted  with 
silks  and  teas  ;  it  governs  and  directs  the  lo- 
comotive, that  mighty  power  by  which  our 
whole  Western  country  is  to  be  revolutionized ; 
it  presides  over  the  magnetic  telegraph,  im- 
planting its  posts  and  stretching  its  wonderful 
wires ;  it  patiently  and  swiftly  picks  up  letter 
by  letter,  and  transforms  the  refuse  of  our 
wardrobes  into  speaking  leaves  more  precious 
than  the  Sibylline  oracles;  it  holds  the  plough, 
and  the  wild  prairie  ceases  to  be  a  wilderness, 
and  bears  upon  its  bosom  waving  fields  of 
grain,  to  feed  distant  nations  and  to  enrich 
our  own.  All  that  we  have  of  comfort  and 
of  prosperity  we  owe  to  the  co-operation  — 
too  often  but  a  union  of  necessity  —  of  Labor 
and  Capital.  Let  them,  then,  be  one  in  a  gen- 
erous and  Christian  spirit;  let  them  co-operate, 
not  because  they  must^  but  because  they  oughtj 
—  because  the  world  needs  them  both,  and  be- 
cause their  interests  and  welfare  are  identical. 
In  our  country,  capital  ought  not  to  be  a 
mark  for  vituperation,  and  a  separating  barrier 


LABOR    AND     CAPITAL.  41 

between  the  sympathies  of  classes ;  for  here 
every  man  may  become  a  capitalist,  in  the 
sense  of  possessing  surplus  means  beyond  the 
necessary  expenditure  for  food  and  clothing. 
I  lay  it  down  as  a  settled  fact,  that  any  man  of 
ordinary  muscular  development,  of  good  health, 
and  industrious  and  temperate  habits,  must 
necessarily  become  independent.  In  this  West- 
ern land,  if  anywhere,  labor  may  hold  up  its 
honest  head,  and  feel  itself  equal  to  any  class 
of  society  ;  for  it  is  labor,  muscle,  toil,  applied 
to  the  more  than  golden  treasures  of  our  soil, 
that  the  country  mostly  needs,  and  is  most 
anxious  to  obtain.  Here  the  "  hands "  may 
venture  to  talk  about  principles  with  the  em- 
ployers ;  and  are  not  in  the  condition  in  which 
they  are  in  some  portions  of  this  country,  as 
well  as  in  England,  —  so  graphically  described 
by  Dickens,  in  w^hich  the  relations  of  laborer 
and  employer  are  to  the  "  hands "  "  all  a 
muddle,"  —  knowing  nothing  but  the  will  of 
their  master,  and  dependent  upon  his  ca- 
prices for  their  bread.  But,  you  will  say  to 
me,  many  men  who  work  hard  do  not  become 

4* 


42  MUTUAL    RELATIONS    OF 

capitalists  :  they  do  -nothing  beyond  barely 
supporting  their  families  through  the  year; 
and  I  know  very  well  that  what  you  would 
say  is  true.  But  it  does  not  in  the  least  de- 
preciate my  statement.  There  are  causes  at 
work  among  our  laboring  population  which 
deprive  them  of  the  independence  of  position 
which  they  might  otherwise  attain  to. 

There  is  a  sad  want  of  forethought,  wliich 
in  many  instances  produces  great  suffering ; 
and  when  that  is  not  the  result,  it  chains  them 
to  a  position  of  dependence  which  they  ought 
not  to  occupy.  The  average  wages  per  diem 
of  mechanics  and  laboring  men  in  our  city 
will  probably  be  found  to  range  from  two  dol- 
lars and  a  half  to  one  dollar  and  a  quarter. 
Men  who  in  Europe  would  be  glad  to  obtain 
two  dollars  for  a  week's  labor,  in  this  city 
will,  at  some  seasons,  look  very  contemptu- 
ously upon  the  same  sum  for  a  day's  work. 
And  yet  there  is  poverty,  and  much  of  it,  in 
this  city  of  Alton,  as  the  Relief  Committee 
can  abundantly  testify.  The  greater  portion 
of  it,  indeed,  is  owing  to  the  inadequate  com- 


LABOR    AND     CAPITAL.  -  43 

pensation  of  female  labor,  by  which,  in  sea- 
sons of  depression,  poor  widows,  unable  to 
accumulate  in  the  most  prosperous  times,  are 
deprived  of  support,  and  must  be  relieved  from 
the  means  of  the  more  prosperous.  Setting 
aside  these,  and  the  usual  amount  of  sick  poor, 
however,  there  still  remains  a  class,  who,  with- 
out being  reduced  to  absolute  want,  and  with- 
out coming  upon  the  hands  of  the  Relief 
Committee,  are  still  under  the  necessity  of 
parting  with  their  superfluous  furniture  and 
clothing,  and  of  obtaining  credit  at  the  pro- 
vision-stores. And  the  question  may  well  be 
asked,  How  can  this  be,  in  the  face  of  their 
receipt  of  large  wages  during  the  long  busy 
season  ?  And  here,  I  think,  the  proper  solu- 
tion will  be  found,  not  in  schemes  of  Icarian 
Communism,  but  in  the  hearts,  and  habits  of 
the  working  classes  themselves.  They  need 
above  all  things,  and  are  most  deficient  in, 
thrift  and  forethought. 

There  are  two  principal  methods  by  which 
these  important  characteristics  may  be  devel- 
oped and  strengthened,  —  a  social  and  an  in- 


44  MUTUAL    RELATIONS    OF 

dividual  plan.  The  first  is  by  co-operation 
among  workingmen  for  mutual  aid  in  sick- 
ness and  misfortune.  The  other  agency  is 
the  Savings  Bank,  in  which  the  thrifty  work- 
ingman  deposits  every  week,  or  every  month, 
some  portion  of  his  earnings,  resolutely  fore- 
going any  needless  luxury  or  expense,  that 
the  future  of  himself  and  his  family  may  be 
clear  and  cheering.  Of  the  first  of  these  I 
have  only  to  say,  that,  properly  managed, 
I  have  no  doubt  a  Benefit  Society  may  be 
made  a  great  blessing  to  the  workingman.  But 
my  preference  is  with  the  Savings  Bank,  be- 
cause its  results  are  so  certain  and  so  tangible. 
Its  benefits  are  based  upon  no  contingency  of 
misfortune,  but  they  are  steadily  and  surely 
accruing  as  the  depositor  places  his  earnings 
in  its  safe-keeping.  These  institutions  off'er 
a  premium  for  forethought,  by  paying  interest 
upon  deposits  ;  and  every  workingman  ought 
to  possess  a  bank-book  with  a  fair  account,  — 
at  least  until  he  has  purchased  and  paid  for  a 
home  ;  and  every  workingman  may  do  it,  by 
reasonable   prudence,   and   the   avoidance   of 


LABOR     AND     CAPITAL.  45 

expenses  which  are  not  only  useless,  but  a 
physical  and  moral  injury.  There  are  two 
foes  to  the  working  classes  which  call  for 
more  serious  effort  to  dethrone  them,  and  are 
more  practical,  than  the  social  evils,  real  and 
fancied,  about  which  most  of  your  self-styled 
philanthropists  are  wont  to  declaim.  Extrav- 
agance and  intemperance  are  the  working- 
man's  greatest  enemies.  It  is  a  very  common 
thing  to  denounce  the  extravagance  of  the 
rich ;  but  what  do  we  mean  by  the  term 
extravagance  ?  Is  it  not  a  relative  term,  sig- 
nifying a  useless,  an  improper  expenditure,  — 
the  waste  of  capital  upon  articles  which 
could  be  dispensed  with  ?  If,  however,  we 
say  this  with  reproach  of  the  wealthy,  with 
what  accumulated  condemnation  may  it  be 
charged  against  those  who  live  by  their  toil ! 
A  workingman,  or  a  workingman's  wife,  may 
be  quite  as  extravagant  in  the  purchase  of 
tea  and  silk,  as  a  rich  man  in  the  purchase 
of  diamonds  and  pictures.  When  tea  at  fifty 
cents  is  good  enough,  it  is  shameful  extrava- 
gance for  a  poor  man  to  pay  a  dollar ;  when 


46  MUTUAL    RELATIONS    OF 

a  coarse  garment  is  sufficient  for  decency  and 
comfort,  it  is  extravagant  to  pay  three  times 
its  price  for  a  fine  one  ;  when  homespun  is 
the  best  material  for  his  use,  the  workingman 
is  a  spendthrift  who  is  ashamed  to  wear  any- 
thing less  fashionable  than  broadcloth ;  and 
when  calico  is  more  appropriate,  it  is  wasteful 
folly  to  purchase  silk.  I  know  that  the  rich,  or 
the  comparatively  wealthy  classes,  have  much 
to  answer  for,  in  inciting  to  extravagance  those 
whose  ruin  it  is  to  copy  their  example,  but 
who  will  ape  them.  I  know  the  mercantile 
and  professional  classes  of  society  have  a  re- 
sponsibility;  and  in  due  time  —  so  far  as  my 
voice  will  reach —  I  shall  be  found  reminding 
them  of  it.  But  what  a  poor,  unmanly  plea 
it  is,  that  because  others  do  wrong,  we,  like 
patient  sheep,  must  follow  our  leaders.  What 
a  disgrace  to  manhood  it  is,  to  avow  our  thor- 
ough want  of  independence,  when  following 
foolish  customs  will  make  us  servants  all  our 
lives. 

Intemperance  has   been  so  much  agitated, 
that  one  runs  the  risk  of  talking  in  vain  when 


LABOR    AND    CAPITAL.  47 

remonstrating  against  it.  But  depend  upon 
it,  there  is  a  great  work  yet  to  be  accomplished 
by  the  working  classes  for  themselves,  before 
we  may  cease  to  speak  of  the  wrong  done  to 
them  by  their  too  frequent  over-indulgence. 
Something  like  one  hundred  and  fifty  thousand 
dollars  are  annually  expended  in  the  bar-rooms 
of  this  small  city.  Where  do  you  suppose 
that  sum  comes  from  ?  From  whom  is  the 
iniquitous  license  fund  of  this  city  pilfered  ? 
Do  you  dream  that  the  low  dram-^ops  of 
the  place  are  kept  from  motives  of  benevo- 
lence ?  Do  you  think  there  is  a  man  con- 
nected with  the  bar-rooms  who  will  make  a 
personal  sacrifice,  for  the  purpose  of  swelling 
the  ill-gotten  Pauper  Fund  ?  No,  my  friends, 
this  money  is  wrung  from  the  honest  toil,  and 
filched  from  the  hard  work,  of  the  laboring 
men.  It  is  money  which  ought  to  build  their 
houses,  and  clothe  and  educate  their  children, 
and  furnish  their  own  minds  with  that  equip- 
ment of  knowledge  which  will  make  their 
work  a  thing  of  soul  and  religious  signifi- 
cance, instead  of  a  dull  routine  of  mechanism. 


48  MUTUAL    RELATIONS    OF 

Nor  only  so,  but  one  may  be  intemperate 
without  entering  a  bar-room.  I  know  of  men 
who  are  fierce  enthusiasts  upon  the  temper- 
ance question,  —  who  will  scarcely  counte- 
nance religion,  if  it  does  not  weave  a  temper- 
ance lecture  into  every  sermon,  —  and  yet 
these  philanthropic  hobby-riders  are  themselves 
guilty  of  the  worst  form  of  intemperance,  in 
the  excessive  use  of  tobacco  and  snuff.  They 
need  the  soul  of  temperance,  —  that  spirit  of 
self-denial  which  purifies,  not  alone  a  single 
quality,  but  the  whole  interior  man;  which 
labors  at  the  fountain-head,  and  sets  up  duty 
and  right  as  the  paramount  principles  for 
life-guidance,  and  the  invariable  governors. 
Let  any  workingman  set  resolutely  about  a 
retrenchment  of  his  needless  expenses,  and  an 
abandonment  of  his  injurious  habits,  and,  in- 
stead of  wasting  his  capital,  let  him  place  it 
in  the  keeping  of  a  Bank  or  a  Savings  Insti- 
tution, and  a  very  few  years  will  suffice  to 
assure  him  of  the  fallacies  of  agrarianism. 
Perhaps,  however,  a  question  may  grow  out 
of  the  occasional  suspension  of  banks,  which 


LABOR   AND    CAPITAL.  49 

may  be  profitably  treated  here.  During  the 
present  winter,  the  monetary  world  has  passed 
through  one  of  the  most  trying  crises  that 
have  ever  visited  it.  Old-established  and  re- 
liable banks  have  temporarily  suspended ;  and 
at  one  time  it  seemed  highly  probable  that 
our  whole  Western  valley  would  be  involved 
in  a  common  ruin.  What  nobleness  and  dis- 
interestedness prevented  that  calamity  you  all 
know  ;  but  there  was  a  lesson  for  the  moralist 
in  the  excited  crowds,  who  for  a  day  or  two 
besieged  the  banks  with  impatient  demands 
for  their  deposits.  It  probably  never  entered 
into  their  imaginations,  that  they  were  the 
only  dangerous  and  culpable  parties  to  that 
temporary  excitement.  They  never  dreamed 
that,  in  most  bank  failures,  the  depositors,  and 
not  the  officers,  are  the  cause  of  the  calamity. 
There  are  probably  few  banking  institutions 
in  the  country  which  could  meet  an  instant 
demand  of  all  depositors  for  specie ;  because 
it  is  by  keeping  the  money  in  circulation  that 
they  are  able  to  pay  interest  upon  the  depos- 
its ;  and  it  is  in  this  way  that  they  are  serving 

5 


50  MUTUAL    RELATIONS    OF 

and  advancing  the  common  interests  of  soci- 
ety, —  those  interests  upon  which  all  culture 
and  art  and  religion  most  depend.  And  in 
subserving  these  great  purposes  of  social  life^ 
banks  come  within  the  sphere  of  Christianity, 
and  may  be  dealt  with  by  the  Christian  teach- 
er. But  if  the  means  of  the  banks  must  be 
locked  up  in  their  vaults,  if  they  are  not  to  be 
circulated  upon  sufficient  security,  how  shall 
they  perform  their  Christian  mission,  and  how 
shall  they  be  enabled  to  pay  the  interest  upon 
their  deposits  ?  The  insane,  or  at  least  in- 
considerate, haste  with  which  a  certain  class 
of  small  depositors  rushed  upon  the  banks, 
and  caused  the  business  prospects  of  this 
whole  valley  to  totter  for  a  season,  —  and 
would  have  caused  them  to  fall  but  for  the 
vigorous  and  efficient  counter-operations  of  a 
few  individuals,  —  if  it  teaches  us  nothing 
else,  ought  to  impress  the  truth  of  the  neces- 
sity for  faith  in  human  integrity. 

*  Schoolmen  and  theologians  may  speculate 
as  they  will,  but  depend  upon  it,  for  this  work- 
day life  of  ours,  we  must  have  faith  in  each 


LABOK    AND    CAPITAL.  51 

other;  a  faith  in  human  action  of  a  higher 
order  than  JMachiavelianism ;  a  forbearance 
of  a  nobler  stamp  than  selfishness  inculcates ; 
and  a  cheerful  hope,  which  will  see  in  every 
man  something  better  than  a  designing  villain. 
Without  this  common  confidence,  the  machin- 
■ery  of  society  could  not  continue  in  action  a 
single  day.  If  we  must  distrust  each  other,  — 
if  the  workingman  must  see  in  every  capitalist 
a  born  foe,  and  the  apprentice  regard  his  master 
as  a  natural  enemy,  —  if  the  different  classes 
and  the  different  creeds  of  society  have  not  a 
common  purpose,  and  a  common  labor,  what 
will  become  of  civilization  ?  It  would  level 
your  cities,  and  destroy  your  improvements  ; 
it  would  bring  back  with  accumulated  vio- 
lence the  Dark  Ages,  without  an  intervening 
"  truce  of  God."  In  those  dark  days  of  feudal 
violence,  there  were  seasons  when  the  Church 
(honor  to  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  for  it ! ) 
could  influence  the  unruly  robbers,  falsely 
called  nobles;  and  for  a  season  every  man  was 
safe,  and  fair  fields  again  blossomed,  and 
goodly  churches  were  built,  until  the  cessation 


52  MUTUAL    RELATIONS    OF 

of  the  truce  brought  back  the  former  violence. 
So  is  it  with  Christian  faith  in  human  integ- 
rity. It  goes  abroad  into  the  conflicts  of  clash- 
ing interests,  and  asserts  a  religious  truth 
where  too  frequently  no  other  religious  voice 
is  heard.  Do  nothing,  I  pray  you,  to  weaken 
its  power ;  nay,  rather,  at  sacrifice  and  injury 
to  yourselves,  maintain  it  as  the  rule,  that  men 
are  honest,  and  rogues  are  the  exception,  — ■ 
that  all  have  a  common  mission  in  the  world, 
and  that  over  the  infinite  variety  of  human 
callings  Christianity  casts  a  mantle  of  brother- 
hood, and  will  yet  make  their  labors  perfect  in 
the  creation  of  a  grand  universe  of  fraternity 
and  mutual  aid. 

My  friends,  I  am  not  unaware  that  I  have 
spoken  commonplace  words  about  common- 
place things ;  but  I  have  been  prompted  by 
the  belief  that  it  is  precisely  this  common- 
place life-experience  which  requires  the  co- 
operation and  strengthening  of  Christianity, 
and  which  religion  can  and  ought  to  minister 
unto.     If,  therefore,  I  have  mingled  the  sacred 


LABOR    AND    CAPITAL.  53 

and  profane,  it  has  been  with  the  intention  of 
making  the  profane  better  by  contact  with  the 
sacred.  Take  these  thoughts  with  you  to 
your  working  lives,  and  so  apply  them  that 
your  work  may  be  transformed  from  rude 
drudgery  into  a  messenger  of  blessing. 


5* 


LECTURE    III. 


SELF-EDUCATION. 

"  It  is  idleness  tliat  creates  impossibilities  ;  and  where  men  care  not  to 
do  a  thing,  they  shelter  themselves  under  a  persuasion  that  it  cannot  be 
done.  The  shortest  and, the  surest  way  to  prove  a  work  possible,  is  to 
set  about  it ;  and  no  wonder  if  that  proves  it  possible  that  for  the  most 
part  makes  it  so."  —  South. 

"  I  caU,  therefore,  a  complete  and  generous  education  that  which  fits  a 
man  to  perform  justly,  skilfully,  and  magnanimously  all  the  offices,  both 
private  and  pubUc,  of  peace  and  war.''  —  Milton. 

When  I  hear  of  a  self-made  man,  I  am  al- 
ways tempted  to  inquire.  Who  is  not  a  self- 
made  man  ?  Colleges  and  universities  are 
not  institutions  to  supply  a  lack  of  brain  to 
the  pampered  sons  of  wealthy  parvenus,  but 
they  are  the  most  democratic  of  organizations 
for  furnishing  the  minds  of  students  accord- 
ing to  their  native  capacity  and  industry. 
Suetonius  tells  us,  that  when  Nero  had  com- 
pleted his  "  Golden  House,"  —  as  his  gorgeous 
palace  on  the  Palatine  Hill  was  styled,  —  he 


SELF-EDUCATION.  00 

walked  through  its  magnificent  extent,  cover- 
ing many  acres,  gazed  upon  a  piazza  consist- 
ing of  three  rows  of  columns,  extending  more 
than  a  half-mile  in  length,  looked  upon  a  sin- 
gle room  one  hundred  and  forty-eight  feet  long 
and  ninety-eight  feet  broad,  viewed  its  splen- 
did statues,  pillars,  baths,  fountains,  quad- 
rangles, and  towers,  —  and  then  exclaimed, 
that  he  had  now  a  house  fit  for  a  man  to  live 
in.  As  it  has  been  well  remarked,  "  There  was 
something  of  nobility,  if  there  was  more  pride, 
in  the  saying.  And  if  he  had  remembered 
that  the  men  Severus  and  Celerus  who  built 
it,  ay,  and  every  hod-carrier,  dwelt  in  that 
habitation  whose  foundation  is  earth,  whose 
pillars  the  mountains,  and  whose  dome  the 
spreading  heavens,  —  yes,  if  he  had  rightly 
remembered  this,  his  pride  had  been  less,  and 
his  true  nobility  greater."  *  But  the  point  in 
the  illustration  to  which  I  call  your  attention 
is  this,  —  that  the  surroundings,  while  they 
may  minister  to  the  man,  do  not  make  him ; 
but  he  moulds  them  to  his  purposes,  and  out 

"  Dr.  Dewey. 


56  SELF-EDUCATION. 

of  his  use  of  them  his  character  grows.  Nero, 
in  his  "  Golden  House,"  may  have  had  fainter 
conceptions  of  grandeur  than  some  sheep- 
watching  peasant,  whose  devout  soul  w^alked 
out  into  the  illimitable  space,  and  read  in  the 
infinite  distances  and  multitude  of  the  stars 
that  beamed  upon  his  lonely  vigil  the  thoughts 
of  God  and  the  human  soul,  out  of  which 
alone  grow  all  true  culture  and  ideas  of  sub- 
limity. And  so  of  Education ;  a  man  may 
be  sent  to  college,  and  even  graduate  there, 
and  yet  as  to  education,  in  its  true  sense  of 
drawing  forth  the  innate  energies  of  his  spirit^ 
and  widening  his  sympathies,  and  expanding 
his  whole  nature,  be  may  be  the  veriest  dunce 
that  ever  stumbled  at  the  "  Pons  AsinorumP 
So,  also,  he  may  be  chained  to  a  shoe- 
bench,  or  fastened  to  a  printing-press,  by  his 
necessity  for  daily  bread  ;  and  yet,  in  his  close 
observation  of  men  and  things  as  they  are 
around  him, — in  his  careful  husbanding  of 
his  spare  moments,  —  in  his  judicious  reading, 
—  he  shall  walk  in  fields  of  knowledge  and 
beauty;  he  shall  feel  the  world  growing  larger. 


SELF-EDUCATION.  57 

and  his  own  soul  growing  with  it;  he  shall 
see  a  significance  in  his  being,  and  in  the 
world  about  him,  of  which  the  merely  manu- 
factured scholar  has  never  dreamed. 

But  let  me  not  be  misunderstood :  colleges 
and  self-education  are  not  antagonistic  or 
rival  agents  of  culture,  but  their  purpose  is 
the  same,  and  their  spheres  may  be  so  blend- 
ed that  a  young  man  may  receive  all  the 
advantages  of  our  best  literary  institutions, 
and  yet  be  emphatically  a  self-made  man, 
in  the  fact  that  his  term-bills  have  been  settled 
from  the  proceeds  of  his  own  toil,  and  while 
availing  himself  of  the  best  aids  for  culture, 
and  for  furnishing  his  mind  with  facts  and 
ideas,  like  Paul  of  old  in  his  devotion  to  the 
Christian  religion,  his  own  hands  may  "  min- 
ister to  his  necessities."  I  do  not  design  in 
anything  I  have  said,  or  may  have  occasion 
to  say,  to  depreciate  the  value  of  academi- 
cal training  in  your  estimation ;  on  the  con- 
trary, I  hope  for  the  day  when  the  young  men 
of  our  country  will  have  the  privileges  of  a 
thorough  collegiate  education,  without  money 


58  SELF-EDUCATION. 

and  without  price.  I  would  make  the  highest 
order  of  intellectual  training  gratuitous,  and 
only  limited  by  the  personal  merit  of  the 
student;  because  it  is  the  duty  of  the  state 
to  educate  its  citizens.  But  I  wish  to  teach 
you,  that  it  is  practicable  for  any  young 
workingman  to  earn  his  education,  even  in  a 
literary  institution ;  and  that,  when  the  day 
for  this  has  passed  away,  there  are  opportu- 
nities by  the  prudent  and  systematic  im- 
provement of  which  we  may  penetrate  be- 
yond the  external  seeming  of  things  to  their 
inward  reality,  and  so  become  living  men,  in- 
stead of  remaining  mere  toiling  and  suffering 
and  decaying  machines. 

Time  would  fail  me  to  detail  all  the  fa- 
miliar narratives  of  the  success  of  earnest 
seekers  after  education-  amidst  the  discourage- 
ments of  poverty.  It  will  be  enough  to  say 
of  the  past,  that  it  has  had  its  Franklin,  who 
rose  from  the  position  of  a  printer's  boy  to 
that  of  a  prince  among  philosophers;  that 
Benjamin  West  has  gone  forth  from  his  se- 
cluded home,  penetrated  the  spirit  of  Art,  and 


SELF-EDUCATION.  59 

left  his  own  name  to  go  down  to  all  genera- 
tions who  love  his  noble  occupation ;  that 
from  poverty  and  seclusion  have  risen  the 
foremost  lights  in  Mechanics  and  Art  and  Lit- 
erature which  have  beamed  upon  this  young 
nation.  But  there  are  men  of  our  own  times,  — 
men  who  breathe  the  same  atmosphere  that  we 
do,  and  who  are  now  interested  in  the  same 
life  that  blesses  us,  —  who  have,  step  by  step, 
toiled  up  their  glorious  way  from  poverty  to 
renown,  and  are  even  now  shedding  the 
brightness  of  their  example  upon  our  path. 
Let  us  strive  to  profit  by  their  career ;  and  if 
not  incited  to  scale  the  heights  that  they  have 
won,  let  us  at  least  learn  from  them  that 
culture  and  art  are  not  repelled  by  the  brawny 
hand  of  labor,  or  unapproachable  by  men 
whose  aspirations  after  excellence  throb  be- 
neath homely  garments,  and  who  toil  for  their 
bread.  Too  much  of  mere  dilettanteism  has 
been  associated  with  literature,  and  it  has 
too  long  been  regarded  as  unable  to  minis- 
ter to  the  intellectual  wants  of  the  masses. 
Indeed,  from  the  kind  of  literature  which  has 


60  SELF-EDUCATION. 

been  offered  them,  the  masses  might  be  jus- 
tified in  the  belief  that  they  have  no  intellect- 
ual capacity.  Now  and  then,  some  sturdy- 
son  of  toil  breaks  through  the  barriers  of  his 
condition,  and  asserts  his  right  to  the  higher 
order  of  intellectual  food;  but  look  at  the 
quantity  of  trash  which  the  press  of  our  coun- 
try spreads  before  the  masses,  compare,  if 
you  will,  the  current  quality  of  fiction  in  the 
so-called  literary  papers,  —  the  "  Flags,"  and 
the  "  Banners,"  cum  mullis  aliis,  —  compare 
these  silly  sentimental  drivellers  with  the  solid 
and  educating  tone  of  literature  which  the 
enterprise  and  true  workmanlike  zeal  of  the 
Chamberses  and  Dickens  furnishes  for  our 
Transatlantic  cousins,  and  you  can  but  see 
that  here  literature  too  seldom  recognizes 
its  elevating  mission  ;  it  does  not,  as  it  should 
do,  assert  its  educating  force ;  it  does  not 
permeate  all  classes,  and  cause  the  echo  of 
its  inspiration  to  repeat  "  Excelsior  I "  from 
every  workshop  and  factory  and  forge  in  the 
land.  It  does  not  assert  its  eternity,  but  is 
content   with    an    ephemeral    glitter,    and   a 


SELF-EDUCATION.  Gl 

frothy  reputation.  The  path  to  education, 
therefore,  is  beset  with  difficulties  for  the 
workingman  ;  and  it  is  well  that  at  the 
outset  we  should  recognize  this  fact,  —  that 
we  should  be  fully  aware,  that,  when  talking 
about  the  self-education  of  workingmen,  we 
are  philosophizing  about  that  which  can  only 
have  reality  as  a  result  of  as  hard  toil,  and 
a  thoroughness  of  application  equal  to  that 
which  the  mechanic  must  bestow  upon  his 
labor,  to  acquire  a  competence  or  to  achieve 
excellence  in  his  calling.  Self-education  does 
not  receive  the  assistance  from  the  press  and 
the  pulpit,  and  from  society,  which  it  ought 
to  receive ;  but,  notwithstanding  this,  there 
are  men  who  rise  above  these  additional  and 
improper  barriers  to  their  culture,  and  become 
masters  in  the  departments  to  which  they  de- 
vote themselves.  Among  these  we  may  find 
profitable  illustrations  in  the  persons  of  Hugh 
Miller,  the  Geologist;  Elihu  Burritt,  the 
Linguist ;  Hiram  Powers,  the  Sculptor ;  and 
Horace  Greeley,  the  Journalist. 

The  first   of   these  commenced   his   career 


62 


SE-LF-EDUCATION. 


under  the  most  unfavorable  circumstances, — 
having  but  a  slight  preparation,  and  being 
early  put  to  the  laborious  and  apparently 
uninspiring  toil  of  stone-cutting.  While  an 
apprentice  and  journeyman  stone-mason,  he 
studied  geology,  and  read  by  fire-light  to 
such  good  purpose,  that  his  name  is  now- 
known  everywhere  as  that  of  him  who  has 
thrown  new  light  upon  some  of  the  most  per- 
plexing questions  in  that  department  of  sci- 
ence. His  mason's  tools  have  opened  new 
volumes  of  Nature's  truth,  and  given  fresh 
demonstration  of  the  w^isdom  and  glory  of 
God.  I  know^  of  no  more  delightful  books,  in 
the  whole  range  of  literature,  than  the  "  Old 
Red  Sandstone  "  and  "  Footsteps  of  the  Cre- 
ator," w^hich  the  pen  of  this  once  illiterate, 
obscure,  and  physically  weak  Scotch  me- 
chanic has  produced.  And  I  know  of  no  work 
so  worthy  of  a  universal  circulation  among 
workingmen,  —  so  well  fitted  to  enkindle  a 
true  ambition,  and  to  form  a  text-book  of  self- 
education, —  as  the  "  Schools  and  Schoolmas- 
ters" of  this  same   most  instructive  author. 


SELF-EDUCATION. 


Hugh  Miller  is  himself  at  once  an  example 
and  a  trophy  of  self-culture.  From  the  bleak 
and  dreary  quarries  in  which  his  boyhood  was 
spent,  —  from  his  lonely  sea-side  and  moun- 
tain rambles,  —  from  his  associations  with  the 
illiterate,  and  his  dismal  lodging-places.  Miller 
has  sent  his  power  over  two  continents,  and 
America  and  France,  as  well  as  his  own 
"  bonnie  Scotland,"  rank  him  in  the  foremost 
place  among  the  geologists  of  his  day.  I 
wall  not  attempt  to  sketch  his  history,  nor  in- 
deed can  I  do  this  with  any  of  the  few  illus- 
trations which  I  shall  offer  you ;  but  depend 
upon  it,  a  perusal  of  his  books  will  do  you 
more  good,  will  cause  you  to  feel  more  strength 
and  earnestness,  will  stimulate  you  to  braver 
attempts  at  excellence,  and  in  every  way  re- 
pay you  better,  than  the  same  expenditure  of 
time  and  money  in  any  other  way.  Such 
works  as  his  "  Schoolmasters  "  form  our  only 
hope  for  the  working  classes  from  literature ; 
and  until  our  own  people  cease  to  canonize 
swindlers,  and  to  purchase  their  biographies, 
we  must  even  depend  upon  foreign  literature 
of  this  cast  for  our  national  nutriment. 


64  SELF-EDUCATION. 

Of  Elihu  Burritt  it  is  enough  to  say,  that 
he  pounded  his  anvil  to  such  good  purpose 
that  the  "  sparks "  have  flown  all  across  the 
continent ;  and,  what  is  stranger  still,  these 
scintillations  have  an  undiminished  bright- 
ness yet.  His  laborious  life  and  successful 
studies  have  blessed  the  sinking  spirits  of 
many  others,  who,  searching  for  a  lower  stand- 
ard of  excellence  than  he  has  attained,  have 
taken  courage  from  his  greater  triumphs,  and 
so  have  felt  the  power  of  his  "  League  of 
Brotherhood."  His  life  of  earnestness  is  worth 
a  century  of  philosophy,  and  is  a  better  hom- 
ily on  the  dignity  of  Labor  than  mortal  lips 
can  utter.  A  blacksmith  and  a  linguist,  he 
has  proved  an  "  Apostle  of  Peace,"  and  de- 
serves greater  glory  than  those  who  fight 
their  way  to  the  nation's  honors.  He  is  a 
living  instance  of  what  a  poor,  but  industrious 
and  earnest  man,  may  accomplish  in  our  land, 
and  his  life  is  a  fact  of  greater  glory  to  our 
national  institutions  than  all  the  eloquence 
of  July  orations  can  exaggerate.  His  exam- 
ple is  of  more  consequence  to  the  working- 


SELF-EDUCATION.  65 

man,  if  it  be  rightly  studied,  than  a  rise  of 
wasfes  or  a  decrease  of  hours.  He  is  himself 
"  an  exposition  of  industry,"  and  might  almost, 
for  his  varied  acquisitions  among  the  lan- 
guages of  all  countries,  be  called  "  an  Exhi- 
bition of  the  Industry  of  all  Nations."  Let 
our  mechanics  copy  his  example,  and  they 
will  find  that  excellence  is  as  near  and  as 
surely  attainable  to  the  mechanics  of  Illinois, 
as  to  him  of  Connecticut. 

Hiram  Powers  was  a  native  of  New  Eng- 
land, and  was  taken  to  Cincinnati  a  poor, 
uneducated  boy.  While  very  young,  he  was 
thrown  entirely  upon  his  own  resources.  Pa- 
tience, industry,  and  temperance  have  had 
quite  as  much  to  do  with  making  him  famous, 
as  his  undoubted  genius.  "  While  a  boy," 
we  are  told,  "  he  displayed  a  mechanical  gen- 
ius of  the  most  remarkable  kind.  With  a 
common  knife  or  file,  he  would  shape  a  piece 
of  wood  or  metal  into  any.  form  to  suit  his 
fancy.  Without  any  previous  instruction,  he 
succeeded  in  building  an  organ,  and  invented 

6* 


66  SELF-EDUCATION. 

a  lathe  for  turning  metals.  Brass,  iron,  and 
stone  were  equally  manageable  in  his  hands." 
He  probably  obtained  quite  as  much  renown 
in  Cincinnati  by  the  construction  of  a  model 
called  the  "  Lower  Regions,"  which  seems  to 
have  materialized  Dante's  Inferno,  as  he  has 
since  gained  all  over  the  world  by  his  Eve 
and  the  Greek  Slave.  His  residence  in  Rome 
and  Florence  was  the  result  of  hard  toil,  the 
means  being  slowly  accumulated  ;  and  he 
probably  owes  much  of  his  final  success  to 
Greenough,  who,  like  a  true  artist,  extended 
a  helping  hand  to  the  struggling  genius.  He 
is  probably  best  known  as  the  producer  of 
that  more  than  classic  creation,  the  Greek 
Slave.  The  stern  chastity  of  this  piece  of 
statuary  makes  it,  in  the  estimation  of  many 
competent  judges,  even  superior  to  that  mas- 
terpiece, the  Venus  de'  Medici.  For  varied 
and  yet  always  pure  and  truthful  expression, 
the  Slave  is  a  masterpiece ;  and  yet  one  can 
scarcely  look  upon  his  later  productions,  Eve 
and  the  Fisher-Boy,  without  regretting  that 
the  Greek  Slave  should  seem  to  rob  those  per- 


SELF-EDUCATION.  67 

feet  works  of  Art  of  their  true  glory.  All  that 
Powers  does,  he  performs  well ;  he  has  set  a 
grand  ideal  before  him;  he  is  indefatigably 
laborious,  and  his  private  character  is  said  to 
be  above  reproach.  These  facts,  and  his 
steady  perseverance  under  the  most  difficult 
and  trying  circumstances,  are  probably  the 
true  secrets  of  his  rise  from  the  position  of  a 
poor,  friendless  boy,  in  the  streets  of  Cincin- 
nati, to  that  of  the  world's  greatest  sculptor 
in  this  age.  And  these  same  traits  of  char- 
acter, faithfully  developed  and  carefully  guard- 
ed, will  raise  any  young  workingman,  or  any 
poor  boy,  if  not  to  the  same  height  of  fame, 
yet  to  the  same  position  of  actual  nobility. 
It  is  by  these  that  our  lives  become  actual, 
and  our  poverty  wears  a  nobler  mantle  than 
Tyrian  purple  in  the  estimation  of  God  and 
all  good  men.  There  is  a  sphere  into  which 
no  wealth  can  purchase  admission,  —  there  is 
a  sanctity  which  cannot  be  bribed,  and  which 
Mammon  cannot  control, —  a  sphere  which 
demonstrates  the  littleness  of  mere  wealth, 
without   noble   aspirations,    and  the  folly  of 


68  SELF-EDUCATION. 

those  who  spurn  their  superiors  in  mind,  be- 
cause of  a  fancied  inferiority  of  blood  or  of 
possessions.  I  mean  the  sphere  of  the  intel- 
lect ;  that  into  which  any  poor  man  may  work 
his  way,  and  which  demands  the  same  toil  of 
all,  ojr  denies  its  degree  to  them.  A  man  may 
carry  a  rough  exterior,  and  dwell  in  humble 
lodgings,  and  yet  he  shall  commune  with  the 
kings  and  princes  of  thought,  and  pity  the 
Dives  who  looks  from  the  wallow  of  his  selfish 
littleness  with  an  air  of  contempt,  as  if  he 
really  lived  in  a  higher  state.  Believe  me,  my 
friends,  you  may  live  in  a  garret,  and  know 
more  grandeur  and  sublimity,  more  fact  and 
philosophy,  more  of  that  intellectual  spirit- 
uality, which  is  the  only  real  substance,  than 
those  who  mistake  their  poor  external  seem- 
ing for  reality,  and  worship  the  shadow,  with- 
out the  power  to  understand  the  substance. 

Horace  Greeley  is  a  man  of  our  own 
times,  who,  whatever  may  be  the  faults  of  his 
judgment,  is  yet  a  good  example  of  the  suc- 
cess of  perseverance.     He  probably  owes  all 


SELF-EDUCATION.  69 

his  present  position  of  eminence  as  a  jour- 
nalist to  the  fact  that  he  was  a  good  work- 
man when  a  journeyman  printer.  That  he  is 
a  man  of  crotchets  and  curious  impulses,  I 
think  his  best  friends  will  not  doubt;  that  his 
social  theories  are  always  practical,  I  think  no 
one  will  assert.  But  yet,  with  all  the  impro- 
prieties of  his  judgment,  and  the  palpable  fol- 
lies of  his  Fourierite  dreams,  —  with  the  dead 
weight  of  a  heart  too  generous  to  learn  to 
look  with  stoicism  upon  the  great  social 
wrongs  which  have  become  institutions  in 
our  land,  —  he  has  succeeded  in  rising  from 
poverty  to  eminence,  and  has  won  not  only  a 
competence,  but  the  respect  of  men  who  have 
very  little  respect  for  his  theories.  That  he 
has  great  goodness  of  heart,  I  think  there  can 
be  no  question  ;  but  it  is  to  his  earnest  in- 
dustry, to  his  manly  resolution  to  make  him- 
self heard  and  felt,  that  he  owes  his  elevation 
to  the  post  of  "  Tribune,"  —  standing  between 
the  two  great  classes  of  society,  and  endeav- 
oring to  sustain  the  lower  against  the  oppres- 
sion of  the  upper.     The  writer  of  a  recent 


70  SELF-EDUCATION. 

eulogistic  biography  of  him  has  summed  up 
his  excellence  in  a  way  that  will  answer  the 
point  of  my  use  of  his  life  as  an  illustration, 
and  so  I  will  borrow  his  language.  "  He  be- 
gan life  as  a  workingman.  As  a  workingman, 
he  found  out  and  experienced  the  disadvanta- 
ges of  the  workingman's  condition.  He  rose 
from  the  ranks  to  a  position  of  command- 
ing influence.  But  he  ceased  to  be  a  work- 
ingman with  workingmen,  only  to  become  a 
workingman /o>'  workingmen."  This  much,  I 
think,  we  may  all  admit ;  and  it  is  from  this 
point  of  view  that  I  wish  you  to  gather 
strength  from  his  example,  to  make  your  toil 
subservient  to  your  higher  life  and  grander 
interests.  Never,  I  pray  you,  be  content  to 
labor  for  mere  wages  ;  ahvays  have  a  purpose 
to  your  life,  which  shall  raise  it  above  the  con- 
sideration of  money  or  clothing  or  posses- 
sions as  an  end.  Remember  that  you  have  a 
life  within  you  of  more  consequence  than  the 
decaying  interests  over  which  the  mercenary 
struggle,  and  for  which  fools  live  and  die,  but 
by  which  wise  men  are  made  more  useful  to 


SELF-EDUCATION.  71 

themselves  and  to  others.  Remember,  that  it 
is  educated  mind  which  governs  the  universe; 
that  ignorance  is  the  voluntary  waste  of  the 
noblest  powers  of  our  being,  and  is  a  waste 
which  ought  not  to  be  permitted.  At  the 
proper  time,  I  shall  endeavor  to  show  you 
that  there  is  no  workingman,  and  no  appren- 
tice, who  may  not,  by  reasonable  industry, 
furnish  his  intellect  with  a  good  and  sufficient 
culture.  One  would  think  that  no  sentient 
and  rational  creature  could  be  content  to  live 
in  our  world  without  knowing  more  of  its 
majestic  beauty,  more  of  its  marvellous  won- 
ders, than  commonly  passes  into  the  concep- 
tion of  men.  Pick  up  a  pebble,  —  examine  a 
wild-flower,  —  look  upon  the  hills, "  rock-ribbed 
and  ancient  as  the  sun,"  —  go  forth  when  the 
stars  in  their  myriad  diversities  of  sparkling 
beauty  are  making  the  night  a  thing  of  glory 
and  of  joy,  —  stand  upon  yonder  ancient  bluff, 
on  which  Marquette  gazed  as  his  canoe  floated 
down  this  wonderful  river,  —  look  out  upon  a 
sunset  such  as  Italy  cannot  afford,  —  wander 
out   upon  the   prairies,  when  they  are  like  a 


72  SELF-EDUCATION. 

heaving  ocean  of  verdure  and  of  flowers, — look 
within  you,  —  listen  to  the  mysterious  past, 
wdth  its  accumulation  of  goodness,  of  thought, 
of  science,  and  of  art,  —  all  for  you.  Behold 
what  passes  before  the  eyes  of  every  working- 
man,  however  lowly  his  lot,  every  hour  of  the 
day,  and  tell  me  if  you  are  willing  to  tug  and 
strain  for  a  morsel  of  bread  and  a  change  of 
raiment,  and  then  to  die  in  the  midst  of  these 
mysterious  sublimities,  without  knowing  more 
about  them  than  the  horse  or  dead  machine 
which  you  control  and  work  with  ? 

But  you  will  say  to  me,  that  you  are  not 
content  to  be  uneducated,  —  that  the  horizon 
of  your  mental  desires  is  continually  w^idening 
as  you  ascend  the  hill  of  knowledge  ;  —  but, 
you  will  say,  "  No  one  cares  for  us  ;  No  one 
lightens  our  heavy  burden  ;  and  though  giants 
in  energy  and  mental  power  may  succeed  in 
overcoming  the  obstacles  to  their  pursuit  of 
culture,  yet  we  shall  faint,  and  must  not  at- 
tempt the  warfare  unaided."  You  will  say, 
too,  that  you  have  claims  upon  the  assistance 
of  others,  and  they  are  quite  as  guilty  in  neg- 


SELF-EDUCATION.  73 

lecting  you,  as  you  are  in  faltering  at  so 'great 
a  work.  And  while  there  is  somewhat  of  fal- 
lacy, there  is  also  much  of  fact  in  this  plea. 
Let  us  see,  then,  what  might  be  done  to  aid 
the  self-education  of  these  persons. 

Literature  may  aid  this  work,  as  Iliave  al- 
ready suggested,  by  furnishing  an  instructive 
and  useful  class  of  reading  at  a  moderate 
price.  I  know  of  nothing  in  which  an  indi- 
vidual could  prove  a  greater  benefactor  to  the 
workingmen  of  our  country,  than  by  popular- 
izing the  great  facts  of  science  and  art,  and 
presenting  them  in  an  attractive  form.  I  am 
convinced  that  a  work  upon  the  model  of  the 
English  "  Penny  Cyclopaedia,"  but  brought 
down  to  our  own  time  and  applied  to  our 
nationality,  would  be  of  more  service  to  our 
country  than  the  conquest  of  Mexico  or  the 
purchase  of  Cuba  ;  and  until  such  works 
do  exist  in  our  country,  public  libraries  and 
familiar  lectures  must  take  their  places.  But 
we  owe  it  to  our  national  welfare  to  frown 
upon  the  introduction  of  so  much,  worse  than 
trash,  into  our  communities,  under  the  im- 

7 


74  SELF-EDUCATION. 

proper  appellation  of  literature,  and,  so  far  as 
our  influence  goes,  to  use  it  in  favor  of  the 
truthful  and  educating. 

The  Church  and  the  pulpit,  I  can  but  think, 
have  a  duty  to  perform  in  this  direction,  which 
has  so  far  been  but  feebly  recognized  and  per- 
formed. Too  often,  religionists  and  working- 
men  are  both  in  error  as  to  the  use  of  Sunday. 
The  laborer  tells  us,  "  The  Sabbath  is  made 
for  man  " ;  that  it  is  a  day  of  rest ;  that  it  is 
the  only  time  for  him  to  attend  to  his  garden- 
ing, to  hunt,  to  fish,  or  to  read  silly  novels. 
The  man  makes  a  great  mistake  by  deducing 
false  consequences  from  correct  premises ;  and 
his  logic  leads  to  the  loss  of  his  best  oppor- 
tunities for  strengthening  and  expanding  his 
spiritual  life. 

Sunday  is  undoubtedly  the  workingman's 
day  of  rest.  But  muscular  activity  may  not 
be  the  best  kind  of  rest  for  him,  —  as  certainly 
physical  inactivity  and  mental  dissipation  are 
not.  He  may  rest  his  weary  limbs,  and  yet 
he  may  devote  the  hours  of  this  day  of  rest 
to   profitable  religious   and   educational  exer- 


SELF-EDUCATION.  75 

cises.  He  may  go  to  church,  if  the  church 
performs  its  duty  to  him,  in  furnishing  him 
with  profitable  food  for  thought;  and  if  not, 
he  may  stay  at  home,  or  wander  out  into  the 
fields,  and  learn  from  his  books  something  of 
the  significance  of  his  life  and  of  the  beauty 
of  his  surroundings.  But  this  involves  that 
vexed  question,  whether  anything  but  dogmas 
may  be  profitably  advanced  from  the  pulpit, 
—  a  question  which  I  have  no  difficulty  about 
deciding  for  myself,  and  cannot  spare  time  to 
settle  for  others. 

Society  owes  a  duty  to  the  education  of 
the  working  classes,  which  exceeds  even  its 
obligation  to  furnish  the  means  of  culture. 
It  is  too  true,  that  in  our  republican  country 
even  the  internal  man  is  not  regarded  so 
strictly  as  the  external.  Too  often  a  fool  or 
a  debauchee  will  be  countenanced  for  his 
wealth,  when  genius  and  learning  in  rags 
would  be  spurned.  We  are  governed  too 
much  by  the  seeming,  and  do  not  often  enough 
penetrate  to  the  reality.  The  mind  is  too  fre- 
quently valued  less  than  the  garments,  and 


76  SELF-EDUCATION. 

the  stains  of  honest  toil  are  deemed  badges 
of  disgrace.  These  things  ought  not  to  be. 
They  are  creating  more  social  injury  than  we 
dream  of.  Their  effects  are  not  limited  to  the 
obstruction  of  the  path  to  culture,  or  an  inju- 
ry to  the  feelings  of  sensitive  and  yet  meri- 
torious men,  but  they  are  the  secrets  of  the 
extravagance  which  induces  our  young  men 
to  waste  their  means  and  their  time  upon  their 
attire,  and  adornment  of  their  persons,  while 
their  minds  and  hearts  are  allowed  to  go  un- 
furnished and  uncared  for.  Do  you  lament 
the  absence  of  mental  power  and  intellectual 
tastes  on  the  part  of  your  clerks  and  mechan-. 
ics  ?  Then,  depend  upon  it,  you  must  show 
them  that  you  value  these  things  higher  than 
the  fopperies  of  dress  and  falsities  of  fashion. 
You  must  make  the  mind  and  heart  the  stand- 
ard, and  never  give  the  young  man  reason 
to  infer  that  villany  and  meanness  may  pur- 
chase their  way  into  good  society  ;  but  rather 
show  them  that  the  degrees  of  our  social  life 
all  rest  upon  distinctions  of  merit  and  of  cul- 
ture.    Do  these  things  faithfully,  and  you  will 


SELF-EDUCATION.  77 

not  long  have  to  lament  the  absence  of  a  love 
for  intellectual  pursuits,  or  a  scarcity  of  intel- 
lectual workingmen.  But  the  Golden  Age  of 
Labor  will  be  begun,  and  the  workman  will 
love  his  toil ;  and  under  his  hand  it  will  be 
not  less  an  embodiment  of  his  spirit  than  a 
thing  of  beauty.  Then  fair  buildings  will  arise, 
unsightliness  will  disappear,  and  cathedrals 
and  art-galleries  will  take  the  place  of  temples 
of  mere  Mammon  ;  then  our  merchants  will 
be  as  princes,  and  as  the  honorable  of  the 
earth  ;  our  laborers  will  find  an  inspiration  in 
their  toil,  and  the  spirit  of  beauty  shall  be 
given  to  the  clods  of  the  valley,  and  dwell  in 
our  habitations  for  ever. 


LECTURE    IV, 


READING   AND  RECREATION,  OR    HELPS    TO    LEARN- 
ING  AND    HINTS    FOR    LIVING. 

"  Overburden  not  thy  memory,  to  make  so  faithful  a  servant  a  slave. 
Remember  Atlas  was  weary.  Have  as  much  reason  as  a  camel,  to  rise 
when  thou  hast  thy  fuU  load.  Memory,  like  a  purse,  if  it  be  overfull 
that  it  cannot  shut,  all  will  drop  out  of  it.  Take  heed  of  a  gluttonous 
curiosity  to  feed  on  many  things,  lest  the  greediness  of  the  appetite  of 
thy  memory  spoil  the  digestion  thereof.  ....  Marshal  thy  notions  into 
a  handsome  method.  One  will  carry  twice  more  weight  trussed  and 
packed  up  in  bundles,  than  when  it  lies  untoward,  flapping  and  hanging 
about  his  shoulders."  —  Thomas  Fuller. 

"But  because  the  spirit  of  man  cannot  demean  itself  lively  in  this 
body  without  some  repeating  intermission  of  labor  and  serious  things,  it 
were  happy  for  the  commonwealth  if  our  magistrates,  as  in  those  famous 
governments  of  old,  would  take  into  their  care,  not  only  the  deciding  of 
our  contentious  law-cases  and  brawls,  but  the  managing  of  our  public 
sports  and  festival  pastimes."'  —  Miltox. 

There  is  a  traditionary  story  connected  with 
the  library  of  one  of  our  American  universities, 
to  the  effedt  that,  once  upon  a  time,  a  new  stu- 
dent, upon  drawing  day,  approached  the  li- 
brarian, staggering  under  the  weight  of  an 
immense  folio  in  black  letter,  w^iich  had  long 


READING   AND    RECREATION.  79 

been  a  dusty  ornament  to  the  college  library, 
and  the  principal  value  of  which  was  prob- 
ably the  pride  of  possession,  —  like  a  great 
many  other  dusty  books  which  cumber  the 
shelves  of  public  libraries,  and  are  an  immense 
expense,  merely  that  it  may  be  said  that  such 
an  institution  possesses  that  rare  black-letter 
copy  of  somebody  (whom  nobody  knows), 
about  something  (for  wdiich  nobody  cares). 
Our  Freshman,  in  the  pursuit  of  knowledge 
under  difficulties,  at  last  reached  the  librarian's 
desk,  and,  depositing  his  camel's  load  of  an- 
cient nonsense,  gravely  requested  the  official 
to  charge  that  book  to  him.  Surprised  at  the 
unusual  choice  of  the  young  man,  and  per- 
haps cherishing  a  lurking  hope  that  he  had 
stumbled  upon  some  rare  specimen  of  preco- 
cious bibliomania,  the  librarian  eagerly  in- 
quired his  reason  for  selecting  that  book  from 
among  the  hundred  thousand  volumes  of  the 
library.  His  reply  was,  that,  as  he  supposed 
he  must  read  all  the  books  before  he  gradu- 
ated, he  thought  he  would  begin  in  that  cor- 
ner with  the  large  ones,  and  so  work  down  by 
degrees  I 


80  READING   AND    RECREATION. 

The  anecdote  is  worth  just  this,  that  it  illus- 
trates the  perplexity  with  which  those  who 
are  thrown  among  books,  without  an  academ- 
ical training,  regard  the  whole  subject  of  read- 
ing. More  time  is  lost  by  workingmen,  and 
by  other  men  too,  in  deciding  what  to  read, 
and  in  reading  what  is  useless,  than  \vould 
serve  to  make  a  profound  scholar  of  any  man 
of  good  native  intellectual  poAvers.  A  young 
man  may  be  earnestly  desirous  of  furnishing 
his  mind  with  all  the  information  he  can  ob- 
tain, but  he  grows  weary  and  disheartened,  as 
he  toils  through  volume  after  volume  with  no 
perceptible  increase  of  his  treasures.  He  does 
not  know,  perhaps,  that  while  he  forgets  names 
and  dates,  and  even  facts  themselves,  his  mind 
is  receiving  its  best  reward  for  his  toil,  in  the 
discipline  which  it  gradually  attains  ;  he  does 
not  understand  that  good  books,  like  good 
company,  polish  all  who  come  in  contact  with 
them,  though  the  words  and  dresses  of  their 
surroundings  pass  from  the  memory.  And 
so  he  tugs  and  strains  to  become  a  scholar, 
with   a  false   standard    of   scholarship  before 


READING   AND    RECREATION.  81 

him  ;  he  despairs  of  becoming  a  self-made 
man,  while  the  process  of  self-formation  is  in 
its  most  active  stage.  He  looks  too  much  to 
the  external,  and  too  little  to  the  internal ; 
and  perhaps  reverences  some  pedagogue  as 
a  type  of  scholarship,  for  his  rapid  utterance 
of  unknown  tongues,  and  egotistical  asser- 
tions of  unheard-of  scientific  hypotheses,  and 
confident  riding  of  strange  hobbies  in  Natural 
Philosophy,  which  an  Agassiz  or  a  Liebig 
would  not  dare  to  mount ;  forgetting  that  a 
parrot  may  be  taught  to  do  all  this,  but  that 
true  scholarship,  like  the  forces  of  Nature,  is 
always  at  work,  but  never  noisy,  accomplish- 
ing most  when  not  seen,  and  giving  but  a 
faint  expression  to  the  outward  of  what  exists 
within.  To  meet  these  difficulties,  and  to 
furnish  a  few  plain  directions  for  useful  read- 
ing, is  the  object,  for  the  most  part,  of  this 
Lecture  ;  and  as  I  wish  to  give  practical  di- 
rections, you  must  pardon  me  if  I  seem  to 
descend  to  unimportant  minutiae. 

Method  is  a  most  important  agent  in  cul- 


82  READING   AND    RECREATION. 

ture.  Centralize  the  scattered  and  desultory 
labors  of  a  few  years,  and  they  will  produce 
more  than  you  dare  to  dream  of.  For  this  pur- 
pose, it  is  important  to  have  a  plan  of  study. 
Set  out  with  a  resolute  purpose  of  obtaining 
a  given  kind  of  knowledge,  and  you  will  not 
only  obtain  that,  but  a  great  deal  more. 
Commence,  if  you  please,  with  the  history  of 
your  own  country,  and  it  will  branch  out  into 
Geography,  Politics,  Geology,  Botany,  Con- 
chology,  and  Mineralogy.;  and  so  will  lead 
to  a  study  of  all  these  branches  of  science 
in  the  abstract,  in  their  application  to  the 
central  subject  with  which  you  have  started. 
So  that,  in  order  to  become  a  very  respect- 
able scholar,  —  or  at  least  a  very  well-informed 
reader,  —  it  is  not  necessary  to  lay  out  a  great 
deal  of  ground.  Start  with  some  one  central 
idea,  and  faithfully  follow  up  its  developments, 
and  you  will  find  the  field  always  opening  to 
your  vision,  and  the  interest  of  the  occupation 
constantly  increasing.  Starting  with  Ban- 
croft's History  of  the  United  States  as  your 
sole    text-book   and   preceptor,    and    keeping 


READING    AND    RECREATION.  83 

within  the  relative  and  logical  connections  of 
that  work,  you  may  in  ten  years  acquire  an 
education,  by  the  faithful  use  of  spare  hours 
—  fragments  of  time  — -  which  are  now  wasted 
in  perusing  worse  than  useless  books,  which 
enervate  your  powers  and  rob  you  of  true 
wealth. 

And  just  here  I  am  led  to  notice  some  fal- 
lacies which  have  become  current,  and  which 
are  working  injuriously  in  retarding  the  edu- 
cation of  our  working  classes. 

One  of  these  fallacies  is,  that  a  great  many 
hours  per  diem  must  be  devoted  to  study,  in 
order  to  attain  proficiency.  The  truth  is,  that 
most  mechanics  waste  more  time  than  stu- 
dents devote  to  reading.  As  a  proof  of  this, 
we  may  mention  the  fact,  that  the  almost  in- 
numerable productions  of  Bulwer  are  the  re- 
sults of  a  systematic  devotion  of  four  hours 
per  diem  to  writing.  Blanco  White,  when 
quite  advanced  in  life,  devoted  fifteen  minutes 
per  day  to  the  study  of  the  Greek  language, 
and  before  he  died  he  had  fairly  mastered  that 
tongue,  and  read  most  of  its  literaiture. 


84  READING    AND    RECREATION. 

Many  of  the  first  literary  men  in  America 
are  engaged  in  other  callings  ;  and  perhaps 
one  might  even  risk  the  assertion,  that  the 
larger  portion  of  magazine  articles  and  ly- 
ceum  lectures  are  the  results  of  a  frugal  and 
systematic  investment  of  spare  half-hours  by 
those  whose  lives  are  full  of  labor.  It  does 
not  require  a  great  amount  of  time,  but  a 
thorough  system  and  regular  perseverance,  to 
make  one's  reading  profitable.  If  Bulwer  can 
in  four  hours  a  day  produce  so  much  litera- 
ture, surely  we  may  hope  to  acquire  some 
minor  attainments  by  a  rigid  adherence  to 
the  plan  of  setting  apart  two  hours  a  day. 

Let  us  see,  however,  whether  the  necessary 
time  can  be  spared  from  other  occupations. 
We  will  take  the  case  of  a  mechanic  who  is 
required  to  labor  ten  hours  a  day ;  this  leaves 
fourteen  hours,  and,  deducting  three  for  eating 
and  recreation,  there  are  still  eleven  left.  Now 
deduct  two  of  these  for  study,  say  from  seven 
o'clock  till  nine  in  the  evening,  and  we  have 
still  a  good  margin  left  for  sleep. 

Two  hours  per  day,  in  ten  years,  omitting 


READING    AND    RECREATION.  85 

Sundays,  will  amount  to  six  thousand  two 
hundred  and  forty  hours.  —  nearly  two  years 
of  ten-hour  days  ;  or,  at  the  rate  of  six  hours' 
study  per  diem^  for  the  collegiate  year  of  forty 
weeks,  equivalent  to  four  years  and  twenty 
weeks. 

So  that,  in  ten  years,  the  faithful  setting 
apart  of  two  hours  a  day  actually  amounts 
to  more  than  the  time  of  an  ordinary  colle- 
giate course.  And  yet  we  are  told  that  our 
workingmen  have  no  time  to  study ;  and  for 
want  of  opportunity  to  become  useful,  they 
are  condemned  to  idle  lounging  at  the  corners 
of  the  streets,  or  at  best  become  masters  of 
the  art  of  checkers,  or  professors  of  profanity, 
or  develop  the  resources  of  the  country  by 
becoming  tobacco  and  whiskey  consuming 
machines. 

Then  some  people  —  and  there  are  a  great 
many  of  them  —  have  settled  it  to  their  own 
satisfaction,  that  they  have  no  genius  for 
study  ;  and  therefore  they  cannot  obtain  any 
benefit  from  efforts  at  self-culture.  Depend 
upon    it,   there    is    no   greater  fallacy  in  the 

8 


86  READING   AND    RECREATION. 

world,  than  that  which  would  substitute  gen- 
ius for  industry.  It  may  be  that  there  are 
persons  who  seem  to  be  born  with  an  intuitive 
appreciation  of  the  most  complex  mathemat- 
ical problems,  but  true  genius  is  always  de- 
pendent upon  culture.  That  order  of  genius 
which  can  dispense  with  industry  is  a  disease, 
—  an  abnormal  condition  of  some  special  de- 
partment of  mind,  —  and  is  as  little  desirable 
as  a  physical  superfluity  of  one  part  to  the 
injury  of  another.  All  true  genius  recognizes 
and  bows  to  the  Creator's  ordinance  of  toil 
as  the  price  of  excellence,  and  is  even  pressing 
on  to  greater  heights  of  attainment  and  wider 
expanses  of  mental  horizon.  The  spirit  of 
beauty  is  hidden,  as  precious  gems  are  stored 
in  the  earth  ;  and  though  one  may  chance  to 
obtain  a  glimpse  of  it  without  great  labor,  — 
as  he  may  pick  up  a  nugget  of  gold  on  the 
beach,  —  yet  the  law  is,  that  only  by  effort 
shall  the  riches  of  the  mental  or  physical 
world  be  secured  ;  and  he  who  waits  for  gen- 
ius to  kindle  his  lamp  of  knowledge  may  sit 
in  darkness  all  his  days,  while  some  patient 


READING    AND    RECREATION.  87 

plodder  shall  mount  to  realms  of  light,  and  be 
thrilled  with  the  music  of  the  spheres.  Gen- 
ius may  "light  its  own  fire,"  but  industry 
must  keep  it  burning.  Set  it  down,  then,  as 
a  determined  fact,  that  you  can  accomplish 
much  with  the  methodical  outlay  of  little 
time,  but  that  nothing  can  be  done  without 
labor.  And  now  let  me  offer  you  a  few  hints 
which  may  be  of  service  in  enabling  you  to 
read  to  the  best  advantage. 

Read  none  hut  good  hooks.  And  by  this  I 
do  not  mean  that  reading  should  be  confined 
to  Baxter's  "  Saint's  Rest"  or  Bunyan's  "  Pil- 
grim's Progress,"  which  —  capital  books  as 
they  are  in  their  sphere  —  would  not  serve  to 
fill  one's  mind  with  very  accurate  scientific 
facts.  But  I  mean  that,  in  whatever  depart- 
ment you  may  wish  to  read,  it  is  better  to 
read  the  best  authors  than  to  wade  through 
the  dilutions  of  their  works  to  be  found  in 
ga.udily  bound  and  badly  printed  "  Gazet- 
teers," and  "  Histories  of  the  World,"  which 
profess  to  contain  in  one  volume  all  that  the 
ages  have  served  to  accumulate.     More  harm 


88  HEADING   AND    KECREATION. 

is  done  by  reading  poor  substitutes  for  good 
books  than  any  money  or  labor-saving  can 
possibly  compensate  for.  Perhaps  you  will 
complain  that  the  style  of  these  better  works 
does  not  suit  you,  —  that  it  is  "  too  dry,"  and 
"  too  little  like  a  story  "  ;  that  is  because  sto- 
ries are  not  facts,  and  you  need  facts  and  not 
stories.  Story-writers  have  adopted  an  in- 
flated and  unreal  style,  and  you  can  do  no 
better  work  for  your  culture  than  to  read  these 
"  dry  "  books  until  you  can  relish  them  with 
a  better  zest  than  you  now  feel  when  poison- 
ing your  minds  with  buccaneer  and  bravo 
improbabilities.  If  you  read  history,  there- 
fore, let  it  be  of  the  type  of  Hume,  Macaulay, 
Grote,  Bancroft,  and  Sparks.  If  poetry,  that 
of  Spenser,  Milton,  Young,  Cowper,  and  our 
own  Whittier,  Longfellow,  and  Lowell.  For 
style,  read  the  Lectures  of  Thackeray,  Giles, 
Whipple,  and  Dewey.  To  attain  logical  dis- 
crimination, read  Story  on  the  Constitution, 
Marshall's  Judicial  Decisions,  and  Black- 
stone's  Commentaries.  For  a  perception  of 
God's  presence  in  the  souls  of  men,  and  of 


READING    AND    RECREATION.  89 

the  beauty  and  glory  of  good  and  true  lives, 
read  the  Biographies  of  NefF,  Oberlin,  How- 
ard, Buxton,  Channing,  Wesley,  Knox,  Swe- 
denborg,  and  John  Fox.  For  travels,  peruse 
Robinson's  Biblical  Researches,  Lynch's  Dead 
Sea,  and  Layard's  Nineveh  and  Babylon. 
And  so  in  philosophy  and  science,  you  may 
make  the  acquaintance  of  the  great  minds  of 
Whewell,  Wayland,  Upham,  Agassiz,  and 
Humboldt. 

Do  not  try  to  remember  all  you  read.  You 
might  as  reasonably  attempt  to  recall  to 
your  memories  all  the  kinds  of  food  by  which 
your  physical  system  has  been  sustained  and 
strengthened  during  the  last  ten  or  twenty 
years,  as  to  burden  your  minds  with  the  pre- 
cise terms  in  which  various  authors  convey 
great  facts  or  clothe  great  principles.  You 
need  the  nutriment,  the  substance,  of  books ; 
and  you  cannot  read  a  good  book  attentively 
without  deriving  benefit  from  it,  however  im- 
perceptibly you  imbibe  its  good.  To  facili- 
tate your  grasp  of  the  works  you  read,  and 
your  apprehension  of  their  spirit,  it  is  well  to 


90  READING    AND    RECREATION. 

make  notes  of  the  leading  tenor  of  argument, 
on  the  general  direction  of  the  narrative. 

Besides  reading  for  information,  bear  in 
mind  that  all  reading  and  all  education  has 
its  most  important  agency  in  its  effects  upon 
your  mental  discipline.  It  is  well,  therefore, 
as  a  matter  of  thought,  to  dissect  a  book  oc- 
casionally,—  analyze  it,  —  resolve  it  to  its  par- 
ticles,—  thfov/  it  into  the  crucible  of  criticism, 

—  hold  an  imaginary  conversation  with  its 
author  (Prescott  or  Guizot  or  Cicero,  perhaps), 

—  show  him  his  absurdities,  —  reveal  his  hid- 
den follies,  —  bring  up  his  mixed  metaphors 
to  the  scorn  of  a  hypercritical  community,  — 
and  prove  to  him  that  he  might  have  done 
better,  and  that  you  certainly  could.  Thus 
you  may  hold  a  revel  in  the  charnel-house  of 
metaphysics,  and  a  holiday  in  company  with 
hard  style,  which,  if  it  does  not  put  life  into 
the  dry  bones  of  the  book,  will  certainly  brace 
up  your  own  powers,  and  enable  you  to  walk 
more  firmly  upon  the  ascending  Parnassus, 
and  to  gaze  without  blinking  upon  the  literary 
luminaries. 


READING    AND    RECREATION.  91 

There  are  means  by  which,  without  any 
very  great  outlay,  —  without  a  greater  expen- 
diture than  a  mechanic's  apprentice  can  aflford,' 
—  the  use  of  the  necessary  books  can  be  pro- 
cured. But  it  is  well,  if  possible,  to  possess 
a  few  good  books.  .  They  form  the  pleasant- 
est  of  acquaintances,  and  one  soon  learns  to 
regard  these  treasuries  of  the  thought  of  the 
good  and  earnest  as  living  things,  rather  than 
paper  and  print.  A  good  library  is  an  anchor 
to  keep  a  young  man  from  roving,  and  a  helm 
to  aid  an  old  man  to  gain  the  greatest  possi- 
ble benefit  from  what  remains  of  the  breeze. 
Books  are  the  conservators  of  society,  —  they 
are  never  carried  off  by  temporary  excite- 
ments, nor  bribed  by  office,  but  remain  as 
true  to  w^hat  Plato  thought  and  Cicero  spoke 
as  though  these  great  ones  had  never  passed 
from  earth.  A  few  shelves  well  filled  are 
greater  ornaments,  and  surer  indications  of 
the  respectability  of  a  young  man,  than  outre 
garments  and  mosaic  chairs.  They  will  cleave 
to  him  when  friends  are  false,  and  fortune 
frowns  ;  and  even  though  his  poverty  obliges 


92  READING   AND    RECREATION. 

him  to  part  with  them,  they  will  linger  about 
his  memory,  and  dwell  in  his  heart,  like  the 
•presence  of  a  holy  affection  when  death  has 
removed  its  object.  By  all  means,  have  some 
good  books  to  call  your  own.  Add  to  them  as 
rapidly  as  you  can;  and  if  you  will  curtail  your 
needless  expenses,  you  can  soon  obtain  a  good 
library.  Give  me  the  money  which  the  young 
men  of  our  city  waste  in  cigars,  because  it  is  so 
genteel  to  smoke  ;  and  in  fine  apparel,  because 
richer  people  wear  it ;  and  in  parties,  because 
everybody  goes  ;  and  in  horses,  because  Sun- 
day is  a  day  of  rest,  for  everybody  to  ride,  — 
and  I  will  endow  a  free  library,  and  free  lec- 
tures, and  free  schools,  which  shall  make  our 
city  so  noted  for  literature,  that  all  who  wish 
to  come  within  the  sphere  of  it  shall  flock 
here  to  dwell,  and  fill  our  streets  with  build- 
ings and  our  wharves  with  boats,  and  develop 
the  wealth,  which  is  only  waiting  for  more 
capital  and  labor  to  enrich  our  city  and  en- 
large its  borders. 

Form   Pleading' Clubs.     Let   a   few   young 
men  associate  themselves  for  the  purpose  of 


READING   AND    RECREATION.  93 

mutual  cultivation  ;  let  them  read  the  same 
works,  and  devote  a  small  portion  of  one  or 
two  evenings  in  the  week  to  a  comparison  of 
their  impressions.  This,  while  it  will  help  to 
fasten  the  topics  of  their  study  in  the  mind, 
will  also  furnish  an  incitement  to  careful  read- 
ing ;  and,  if  the  club  can  procure  a  very  slow 
reader  as  one  of  their  number,  let  them  prize  him 
very  highly  for  his  services  in  retarding  their 
too  rapid  skimming  of  the  surface  of  books. 
Such  a  person  in  a  club  would  be  worth  more 
than  a  professor  in  a  college,  and  his  slowness 
would  advance  the  real  progress  of  the  club 
more  than  the  fire  of  genius.  The  tendency 
is  always  to  too  great  a  degree  of  rapidity  in 
reading,  and  our  natural  impulsiveness  and 
haste  lead  us  rushing  blindly  over  the  beau- 
ties and  treasures  of  literature,  skipping  whole 
chapters  of  good  thought,  because  they  seem 
to  a  casual  glance  to  be  "  dry,"  and  leaping 
over  pages  and  sentences  in  an  impetuous  de- 
sire to  see  how  it  ends.  Indeed,  our  reading 
public  are  generally  too  much  like  a  mob  at 
a    public   execution,   crowding   and    jostling. 


94  READING    AND    RECREATION. 

hasting  and  fuming,  to  witness  the  catas- 
trophe. We  are  always  in  a  hurry  to  reach 
the  end,  —  not  alone  of  books,  —  but  of  wealth 
and  the  growth  of  empire ;  and  too  often  in 
our  haste  we  overlook  the  facts  of  rectitude 
and  conscience,  and  those  very  "  dry  chapters," 
—  in  the  estimation  of  this  "fast"  age,  —  the 
Decalogue  and  Lord's  Prayer. 

Do  not  expect  too  much.  The  amount  of 
culture  which,  under  the  best  of  opportunities, 
can  be  obtained  in  this  mortal  condition,  is 
very  small.  The  great  mathematician,  La- 
place, when  his  earthly  career  was  closing, 
said,  "  That  which  I  know  is  limited,  that 
which  I  do  not  know  is  infinite."  And  New- 
ton, with  his  profundity  of  mental  grasp,  and 
the  great  glories  of  his  demonstrations  shed- 
ding a  brightness  upon  his  name,  —  even  he 
compared  himself  to  a  boy  upon  the  beach 
picking  up  pebbles  of  knowledge,  with  the 
infinite  ocean  spread  before  him.  We  cannot 
comprehend  all  knowledge,  nor  can  we  read 
all  that  is  written ;  let  us  be  satisfied  with  rea- 
sonable progress,  and  judge  of  our  faithful- 


READING   AND    RECREATION.  95 

ness,  not  by  the  results,  but  by  our  diligence 
in  striving. 

Let  me  add  to  these  suggestions  for  reading 
a  few  hints  for  living.  The  great  purpose  of, 
life  is  too  often  overlooked,  and  we  become  so 
immersed  in  our  poor  temporary  excitements, 
that  we  forget  our  higher  and  more  permanent 
interests.  The  proper  rule  for  judging  char- 
acter is  what  the  man  is,  not  what  he  has. 
We  may  make  our  life  just  what  we  please, 
because  our  externalities  will  take  their  color- 
ing from  our  inward  life  ;  and  so  a  man  may 
live,  like  Diogenes,  in  a  tub,  and  yet  the  man 
shall  exalt  his  humble  abode  into  a  thing  of 
beauty ;  or  he  may  dwell  in  a  palace,  with  a 
spirit  that  will  make  his  dwelling  the  meanest 
of  tubs.  It  is  the  man,  and  not  his  dwelling, 
or  his  clothing,  that  constitutes  the  essential ; 
and  just  as  he  is,  so  will  his  surrounding  be. 
He  may  make  life  a  matter  of  toil  and  vex- 
ation, and  go  down  to  his  grave  like  the  close 
of  a  dismal  day ;  or  he  may  walk  erect  on 
the  earth,  as  in  the  fair  palace  of  God,  and 
evolve  out  of  all  his  toil  and  discipline  an 


96  READING   AND    RECREATION. 

harmonious   and  true   life,  which   shall  make 
him  joyous  here  and  jubilant  hereafter. 

INIan  is  made  to  labor,  but  not  to  be  a  beast 
of  burden  ;  and,  if  he  will  chain  himself  to 
endless  and  unmitigated  toil,  let  him  not 
blame  Providence,  but  his  own  want  of  man- 
hood, which  compels  him  to  bow  to  the  money- 
seeking  and  wealth-possessing  decrees  of  our 
republican  aristocracy.  He  may  be  a  man, 
and  Christian,  if  he  be  as  rich  as  Croesus  ; 
and  so  too  he  may  be  a  true  man,  and  a 
happy  man,  if  he  be  as  poor  as  Job.  Wealth 
is  a  good,  but  not  the  highest  good  ;  labor  is 
a  necessity,  but  not  the  sole  necessity.  Our 
spirits  need  recreation  ;  we  need  more  play- 
time than  we  get ;  and  we  have  no  right  to 
rob  our  minds  and  souls  of  their  Sabbaths, 
or  our  physical  systems  of  their  sleep,  in  order 
to  obtain  it.  We  have  no  right  to  toil  and 
tug  through  the  week,  and  post  ledgers  and 
work  like  day-laborers  in  our  gardens  on  Sun- 
day, or  to  strive  to  find  recreation  after  a  hard 
day  of  toil  in  a  harder  night  of  exercise  in  the 
ball-room.    There  are  times  more  suitable,  and 


READING   AND    RECREATION.  97 

recreations  more  fitting,  than  these.  It  is 
strange  that  the  men  whose  lives  are  spent 
in  muscular  exertions  are  those  who  seek 
muscular  amusements  ;  while  those  whose 
lives  are  sedentary  are  generally  found  amus- 
ing themselves  with  recreations  which  confine 
them  to  the  laboratory  or  study. 

This  matter  needs  a  reform  ;  and  if  any  one 
must  throw  quoits  and  play  ball,  let  it  be  the 
ministers  and  lawyers,  who  die  before  they 
ought  to,  for  want  of  proper  exercise.  Much 
may  be  done  for  self-education  by  judicious 
recreation.  Let  our  mechanics  devote  their 
summer  evenings  to  geologizing  and  botaniz- 
ing, and  their  winter  evenings  to  astronomy 
and  lectures,  and  educated  and  literary  labor- 
ing men  will  soon  cease  to  be  a  rarity.  But 
beware  of  selfishness  in  your  amusements. 
A  man  may  flatter  himself  that  he  is  exceed- 
ingly wise  in  arranging  his  life  so  as  to  make 
the  most  money,  and  at  the  same  time  to  cul- 
tivate his  tastes,  when  he  is  robbing  the  most 
sacred  and  important  parts  of  his  being  of 
their  due.     Remember,  there  is  a  time  to  all 

9 


98  READING   AND    RECREATION. 

things,  and  to  everything  a  season  ;  and  Sun- 
day is  the  time  and  season  for  religious  and 
moral  culture:  you  have  six  days  in  which 
to  toil,  and  your  toiling  days  constitute  six 
sevenths  of  your  lives.  Can  you  give  the 
whole  of  this  great  portion  of  your  earthly 
existence  to  unvaried  scrambling  after  food 
and  raiment  ?  Ought  you  not  to  reserve 
a  portion  of  your  working  days  for  garden- 
ing and  scientific  recreations?  Ought  you 
not  to  seek  rational  and  profitable  recreation 
out  of  doors,  in  God's  free  air,  under  his 
broad  sky  and  upon  his  speaking  earth,  rather 
than  to  crowd  into  ill-ventilated  billiard-rOoms 
and  groceries  ?  You  cannot  always  work ; 
but  when  you  play,  O  let  it  be  with  a  pur- 
pose, and  to  good  result!  Ijet  the  fresh  air 
breathe  its  vitality  into  your  lungs, — let  the 
cold  water  cleanse  your  labor-stains,  —  let  the 
earth  reveal  its  stored  wonders,  —  let  the  birds 
sing  for  you,  the  flowers  tell  of  God,  the 
great  hills  point  toward  heaven,  and  the 
blooming  prairie  materialize  the  poet's  dream 
of  Paradise.     Play,  —  for  your  nature  as  much 


READING   AND    RECREATION.  99 

as  that  of  the  child  needs  it,  —  but  let  it  be 
as  you  would  seek  pleasure  in  heaven;  for 
heaven  is  all  about  you,  if  you  will  but  dis- 
cern it.  Make  the  earth  your  minister,  and 
be  not  its  servant ;  use  it,  but  do  not  permit 
it  to  abuse  you.  And  so  blending  study  and 
recreation  with  a  filial  and  devout  spirit,  you 
shall  understand  the  mystery  of  life,'and  prove 
religion  a  fact,  and  not  a  fancy  ;  a  thing  of  to- 
day, with  its  vital  pulses  full  of  sympathy,  and 
its  warm  heart  throbbing,  and  its  energies 
active  for  all  the  human  kind,  and  not  a 
frozen  dream,  an  accumulated  absurdity,  and 
a  thing  of  forms  and  cant  and  hypocrisy. 
Blend  religion  with  your  lives,  and  they  shall 
be  full  of  generous  deeds  and  loving  thoughts ; 
and  each  day  bring  you  nearer  to  God,  and 
to  the  hearts  of  all  the  good  men  of  all  time. 


LECTURE     V 


CHARACTER. ADDRESSED  TO  YOUNG  MEN. 


'•  Young  men  likewLse  exhort  to  be  sober-minded  "  (or  discreet^.  — 
Titus  ii.  6. 

"  There  is  humilitas  qucEdam  in  vitio*  If  a  man  does  not  take  notice 
of  that  excellency  and  perfection  that  is  in  himself,  how  can  he  be  thank- 
ful to  God,  who  is  the  author  of  aU  excellency  and  perfection"?  Nay,  if  a 
man  hath  too  mean  an  opinion  of  himself,  it  wiU  render  him  unserriceable 
both  to  God  and  man.-'  —  Seldex. 

"To  be  nameless  in  worthy  deeds  exceeds  an  infamous  history.  Th« 
Canaanitish  woman  Ures  more  happily  without  a  name  than  Herodias 
with  one To  subsist  in  Lasting  monuments,  to  live  in  their  pro- 
ductions, to  exist  in  their  names,  and  predicament  of  chimeras,  was  large 
satisfaction  unto  old  expectations,  and  made  one  part  of  their  Elysium. 
But  all  this  is  nothing  in  the  metaphysics  of  true  belief  To  Ure  indeed 
is  to  be  again  ourselves,  which  being  not  only  a  hope  but  an  evidence  in 
noble  believers,  't  is  all  one  to  lie  in  St.  Innocent's  churchyard  as  in  the 
sands  of  Egypt ;  ready  to  be  anything  in  the  ecstasy  of  being  ever,  and  as 
content  with  six  foot,  as  the  moles  of  Adrianus."  — Sm  Thomas  Browite. 


Character  is  our  national  want.  As  a 
people,  we  need  positiveness.  Nations,  like 
individuals,  need  age  in  order  to  maturity; 
and  so  we  may  look  upon  our  want  of  firm, 

*  Such  a  thing  as  a  faulty  exccsa  of  humility. 


CHARACTER.  101 

settled  national  character  as  a  result  of  our 
national  boyhood,  which  the  natural  accumu- 
lation of  years  will  in  a  great  measure  rectify. 
But  it  sometimes  happens  to  individuals,  that 
they  grow  to  old  age  without  passing  be- 
yond the  boyhood  of  character ;  and  so  it  may 
happen  to  the  nation,  if  the  individuals  com- 
posing it  are  not  taught  to  recognize  the  im- 
portance and  necessity  of  a  well-balanced  and 
thoroughly  matured  and  manly  character.  It 
is  because  I  believe  there  is  a  necessity  for 
their  attention  to  the  subject,  and  that  its 
main  interests  and  results  depend  upon  their 
course  in  reference  to  it,  that  I  have  ventured 
to  present  this  topic  to  the  young  men  of  Al- 
ton, and  to  ask  their  attention  to  my  thoughts 
and  expressions  upon  this  most  important 
matter.  The  young  men  have  especial  claims 
upon  the  attention  of  the  pulpit ;  and  the  pul- 
pit, may  I  not  say,  has  an  especial  claim 
upon  their  sympathies.  The  vocation  of  the 
pulpit  is  at  once  an  educating  and  a  con- 
servative one.  It  utters,  age  after  age,  the 
same  exhortations  to  virtue,  and  the  same 


102  CHARACTER. 

warnings  against  vice,  and  knows  no  distinc- 
tion of  age  or  circumstance,  but  looks  upon 
humanity  as  the  object  of  its  solicitude.  Con- 
trary to  a  common  fallacy,  the  pulpit  does  not 
see  in  the  substantial  and  wealthy  men  of  the 
community  its  most  anxious  charge.  These 
it  may  benefit  more  easily  and  more  effectu- 
ally than  it  can  reach  those  whose  habits  are 
not  formed,  whose  characters  have  not  assumed 
a  decided  tone,  and  whose  circumstances  and 
plans  of  life  are  all  fluctuating  and  undecided. 
Believe  me,  then,  if  I  may  speak  for  the  pro- 
fession from  my  personal  feeling,  it  is  the 
young  men  of  our  country  toward  whom  the 
pulpit  looks  with  its  most  serious  and  anxious 
hopes.  Upon  their  co-operation  depend,  not 
only  the  safety  and  well-being  of  society  ex- 
ternally, but  its  internal  soundness  and  vital- 
ity. Upon  the  characters  formed  by  the  young 
men  of  our  own  day  it  will  depend  whether 
the  future  of  our  country  shall  be  that  of 
ancient  Rome,  with  its  external  glitter  and 
internal  decay  and  death,  or  the  rise  of  a 
commonwealth,  which,  having  Christian  prin- 


CHARACTER.  103 

ciple  for  its  heart,  shall  enshrine  the  life  of 
Christ  in  its  histbry,  and  become  immortal  in 
its  deeds. 

God  has  not  designed  that  we  of  this  young 
nation  shall  reproduce  the  old  regal  pomps 
and  childish  externalities  of  those  countries 
and  ages,  when  men  could  not  discern  be- 
tween the  tinsel  and  pageantry  with  which 
despots  amuse  the  masses,  and  the  true  vital- 
ity of  a  golden  age,  when  rectitude  rules 
without  noise  or  show,  and  the  pulses  of  a 
free  people  throb  with  the  common  purpose 
of  accomplishing  a  grand  destiny.  We  have 
a  nobler  and  more  permanent  mission  than 
the  conquest  of  other  tribes  by  the  superiority 
of  our  brute  force  over  their  brutal  weakness ; 
we  have  a  destiny  which  requires  the  disci- 
pline of  the  mind  and  heart,  by  more  than 
Spartan  perseverance  of  application.  For  the 
purpose  which  Providence  has  evidently  con- 
templated through  the  history  of  our  country, 
it  is  not  sufficient  that  we  have  men  of  iron 
muscles ;  we  must  have  those  whose  motives 
and  purposes  are  strong  and  well  trained,  and 


104  CHARACTER. 

whose  aspirations  reach  beyond  the  shadow, 
which  is  ever  fleeting,  to  the  substance,  which 
is  ever  permanent.  We  need  men  with  souls 
as  well  as  bodies ;  and  the  merely  trading  and 
accumulating  animals  are  not  much  better  for 
the  purposes  of  our  national  destiny  than  the 
merely  physical. 

A  great  proof  of  the  world's  progress  may  be 
seen  in  the  different  standards  of  character  re- 
quired of  the  masses.  In  Sparta,  I  doubt  not, 
Poole,  the  Pugilist,  might  have  earned  a  greater 
triumph  than  in  the  metropolis  of  America ; 
but  here  his  life  has  been  useless  and  an 
injury  (save  in  one  thing,  —  that  he  has  de- 
monstrated the  possibility  of  physical  existence 
with  a  bullet  lodged  in  the  heart).  But  while 
demagogues  may  catch  at  a  ruffian's  death, 
and  make  it  a  patriot's  martyrdom,  this  is  an 
exception  to  the  general  course;  the  rule 
proves  the  necessity  for  the  prominence  of 
the  intellectual  and  moral  man,  in  order  to 
permanent  and  substantial  social  eminence 
and  usefulness. 

No  young  man  should  permit  himself  to 


CHARACTER.  105 

pass  the  age  of  twenty-two  years  without  a 
thoroughly  definite  object  for  his  life,  and  a 
well-defined  plan  for  pursuing  it.  Previous  to 
this  period,  he  is  of  course  under  guardians 
who  have  the  responsibility  of  forming  his 
character ;  but  even  then  much  will  lie  within 
himself,  for  he  must  choose  his  own  associ- 
ates, and  upon  his  choice  of  them  will  depend 
his  influence  upon  the  world.  Let  him  set 
out,  then,  with  a  worthy  purpose  and  a  clear 
aim.  Let  him  not  be  deceived  by  the  seeming 
acquiescence  of  society  with  practices  which 
will  not  bear  the  test  of  the  grand  ordinance, 
"  As  ye  would  that  men  should  do  unto  you^ 
do  ye  also  to  them  likewise ^  Let  him  not 
be  deceived  into  the  fatal  error  of  imagining 
that  rectitude  and  virtue  are  old-fashioned 
externalities,  which  are  dependent  upon  the 
maxims  of  men.  Let  him  not  dream  that 
any  practices  of  trade,  any  falsities  of  so- 
cial custom,  any  demands  of  an  employer, 
or  any  line  of  conduct  on  the  part  of  those 
around  him,  which  depart  from  the  spirit 
of   right    and    duty   embodied    in    the   Gos- 


10'6  CHARACTER. 

pel,  can  be  justified  to  his  own  conscience 
or  beneficial  to  his  true  interests.  Let  him 
learn  that  there  is  a  grander  object  for  his  life 
than  the  ministry  to  its  physical  necessities, 
in  the  production  of  an  harmonious  and 
strong   character. 

Permit  me,  now,  to  point  out  one  or  two 
elements  of  true  character  which  may  be  worth 
your  attention,  and  by  developing  which,  even 
at  great  cost  of  patience  and  discipline,  you 
will  be  greatly  benefited,  and  at  the  same  time 
confer  a  lasting  blessing  upon  the  coming  ages, 
as  they  depend  upon  the  influences  of  the 
present. 

Individuality  is  one  of  the  important  ele- 
ments of  character  which  both  the  tendencies 
of  our  synthetic  times  and  the  habits  of  our 
trading  and  accumulating  people  are  likely 
to  make  more  obscure  than  is  consonant  with 
the  best  interests  of  the  race ;  and  therefore  I 
shall  call  your  attention  to  it,  at  the  risk  of 
overlooking  other  principles,  which,  being  more 
frequently  urged  upon  your  attention,  may 
not  suffer  by  any  neglect  of  them.     Our  ideas 


' CHARACTER.  107 

of  humanity  are  too  generally  associated  with 
the  race,  rather  than  with  the  individuals  of 
the  race.  We  think  of  man  as  building  cit- 
ies as  belonging  to  bodies ;  even  the  Chris- 
tian man  is  so  generally  associated  w^th 
the  idea  of  a  multitudinous  church,  that  it  is 
a  very  common  thing  to  doubt  if  a  Christian 
man  can  be  found  outside  of  that  organiza- 
tion. This  generalization  of  our  ideas  of 
humanity  leads  us  to  a  distrust  of  our  in- 
dividual powers,  and  a  mistaken  notion  of 
responsibility.  The  tendency  of  it  is  to  lead 
us  to  throw  our  responsibility  into  a  common 
stock,  and  to  feel  that,  if  the  great  body  does 
well,  we  have  contributed  towards  its  accom- 
plishment ;  but  if  it  does  ill,  our  influence  as 
constituents  in  the  mass  is  so  very  little,  that 
our  responsibility  must  be  proportionably  light. 
And  then  from  humanity  we  are  very  likely 
to  carry  our  reasoning  up  to  Providence,  and 
to  regard  it  as  a  power  which  governs  the 
great  current  of  events,  with  very  little  care 
for  or  acquaintance  with  the  rills  and  streams 
from  which  the  current  is  fed  and  derives  its 


108  CHARACTER. 

importance.  It  is  very  natural,  indeed,  that  a 
young  man,  looking  upon  all  the  living  tribes 
and  busy  interests  by  which  he  is  surrounded, 
should  cry,  "  What  am  I  among  so  many? 
What  is  one  among  the  thronging  crowds 
and  succeeding  generations  of  the  earth  ? 
Shall  I  not  pass  my  day  in  the  same  fretful 
dreams  which  have  visited  others,  and  pass 
away  to  be  replaced  and  forgotten  by  others  ? 
Of  what  consequence  is  one  among  so  many 
myriads  of  existences?  Have  not  millions 
before  me  lived  the  same  life,  endured  the 
same  sorrows,  partaken  of  the  same  joys, 
t)eheld  the  same  sunshine,  and  tilled  the  same 
earth  ?  And  in  doing  all  this,  were  they  not 
the  recipients  of  some  common  endowment 
of  fixed  fate,  and  absolute,  unalterable  natural 
necessity  ?  If  anything  in  the  universe  directs 
the  affairs  of  men,  is  it  not  with  reference  to 
their  totality  ?  and  if  there  be  a  Providence, 
is  it  not  a  Providence  which  regards  the  race, 
but  does  not  stoop  to  isolated  cases  ?  "  These 
questions,  I  say,  are  very  common  among  our 
young  men ;  and  yet  they  are  not  discourag- 


CHARACTER.  100 

ing,  for  they  show  that  the  religious  nature 
is  workinof  like  leaven  in  their  hearts.  But 
when  made  in  a  tone  of  discouragement,  they 
are  not  wise.  He  who  puts  these  questions 
to  himself,  and,  failing  of  a  satisfactory  answer 
from  his  own  hasty  and  imperfect  philosophy, 
and  from  the  opinions  of  men  as  embodied 
in  the  creeds  of  churches,  abandons  the  sacred- 
ness  of  his  individual  life,  or  perverts  it  to 
merely  selfish  and  temporary  uses,  not  only 
wars  against  the  spirit  of  the  New  Testament, 
but  he  contradicts  the  plainest  teaching  of 
his  own  experience.  Lay  aside,  now,  for  a 
moment  all  Christian  teaching;  ignore  rev- 
elation ;  and  regard  the  teachings  of  Jesus, 
either  as  mysteries  too  subtle  for  the  ordi- 
nary intellect  to  grasp,  or  as  the  feverish 
dreams  of  an  enthusiast ;  sweep  away  at  one 
stroke  all  faith  in  the  authenticity  of  the 
miracles ;  —  and  yet,  in  the  diversities  of  the 
individualities  in  the  race,  your  own  experi- 
ence shall  reveal  as  profound  a  mystery,  as 
marvellous  a  miracle,  a  fact  as  unreconcilable 
with   the   idea   of  a   merely   temporary   and 

10 


110  CHARACTER. 

sensuous  existence,  as  any  recorded  in  the 
Evangelic  narratives.  It  is  true,  there  are 
general  necessities  and  general  influences, 
which  modify  the  individual  to  some  extent : 
but  underlying  all  these  there  is  a  person- 
ality which  no  general  or  social  influences 
can  absorb.  Every  man,  after  all,  is  a  unit ; 
his  experiences  are  his  alone;  his  tastes  are 
peculiarly  his;  and,  with  all  the  general  traits 
of  character,  each  mind  is  in  some  respect 
different  from  every  other  mind.  And  the 
difference  is  that  which  gives  color  to  all  the 
rest;  the  distinctive  feature  is  chief,  and  all 
the  others  are  subordinates  and  dependencies. 
Every  man's  knowledge  of  himself  will  assure 
him,  that,  behind  all  the  results  of  training,  .of 
social  influence,  of  inheritance,  and  of  good 
or  ill  fortune,  there  yet  remains  what  all 
these  can  only  modify, —  himself;  that,  des- 
pite the  steady  flow  of  influences  which  would 
seem  naturally  to  merge  him  into  a  common 
vortex,  he  is  a  distinct  personality ;  that,  while 
associating  with  others,  he  is  separate  from 
them,  a  being  within    himself.     And  if  this 


CHARACTER.  Ill 

is  the  teaching  of  experience,  it  is  not  less  the 
teaching  of  revelation;  for  what  is  it  but 
a  repetition  of  Paul's  inquiry,  "  What  man 
knoweth  the  things  of  a  man,  save  the  spirit 
which  is  in  man  ? "  —  the  declaration  of  a 
persgnality  whose  depth  up  external  eye  may 
fathom,  whose  powers  none  other  may  know, 
and  whose  energies  none  other  may  exercise. 
And  is  not  this  united  testimony  a  testimony 
to  positive,  sacred  truth  ?  Is  there  not  a  spirit 
within  us  which  is  but  faintly  shadowed  to 
the  outward  ?  Is  not  the  silence  of  sympathy 
more  expressive  than  the  utterance  of  lan- 
guage ?  And,  after  all  attempts  at  expression 
and  description,  is  there  not,  either  in  grief  or 
gladness,  a  residue  of  experience,  or  sensation, 
which  we  feel  to  be  incommunicable?  Let 
the  experiences  of  life  be  ever  so  common 
and  general,  each  individuality  gathers  them 
into  a  fresh  combination;  and  every  new 
combination  of  them  is  a  new  life ;  it  con- 
stitutes an  identity  never  to  be  lost ;  it  sepa- 
rates and  distinguishes  every  soul  among  the 
teeming  generations   from   every  other  soul. 


112  CHARACTER. 

saves  it  from  being  ingulfed  in  a  vortex  of 
humanity,  and  crowns  it  with  the  glory  of 
heirship  and  participation  in  the  Divine. 

In  our  day  of  busy  generalization,  we  need 
to  recognize  the  important  element,  Individ- 
uality, in  forming  o.ur  characters  ;  to  withdraw 
ourselvesi  for  a  season  from  the  hurrying  cur- 
rent, and  inquire  what  we  are  and  whither 
we  are  tending,  and  what  part  we  have  in 
deciding  our  sphere  and  the  results  to  the 
future  of  our  existence.  We  necessarily  feel 
the  influence  and  recognize  the  government 
of  our  individualism  in  our  ordinary  life 
experience,  in  our  buying  and  selling,  in  our 
eating  and  dressing.  But  do  we  as  fully  rec- 
ognize its  importance  in  the  formation  of  our 
characters  as  w^e  should  do  ? 

It  is  the  great  source  of  our  temptations, 
or  rather  our  yielding  to  them,  that  we  un- 
dervalue the  sanctity  and  importance  of  our 
own  souls,  and  over-estimate  the  significance 
of  the  voices  of  the  multitude.  We  allow 
custom  to  dictate  rules  which  we  are  con- 
scious are  not  only  distasteful  but  injurious. 


CHARACTER.  113 

If  fashion  set  up  an  idol,  which  in  our  inde- 
pendence we  despise,  we  fall  down  and  wor- 
ship it,  at  the  dictate  of  the  many.  What  is 
it  but  a  lack  of  confidence  in  the  strength  and 
value  of  our  absolute  individuality,  which 
causes  us  to  be  so  fearful  of  the  world's  cen- 
sure that  we  hesitate  to  follow  to  the  furthest 
and  remotest  point  the  leadings  of  our  own 
thought  ?  And  what  is  it  but  a  manifestation 
of  this  same  distrust  in  their  individualism,  as 
operated  upon  by  Christian  truth,  which  causes 
religionists  to  frame  creeds,  and  to  fortify 
themselves  by  denunciations  against  departure 
from  the  well-beaten  track  of  established  be- 
lief? We  too  often  lose  sight  of  the  fact,  that 
revelation  is  addressed  to  us  as  individuals, 
and  that  religion  is  a  personal  matter ;  and 
we  strive  to  reduce  it  to  generalization,  we 
invent  religious  machinery,  which  shall  accom- 
plish the  culture  of  the  whole  mass,  instead 
of  viewing  it  as  a  matter  of  solemn  personal 
responsibility,  and  with  that  word,  Responsi- 
bility, on  our  lips,  we  dictate  the  form  of  be- 
lief, the  color  of  the  emotions,  the  shape  of 

10* 


114  CHARACTER.  t- 

the  impulses,  which  must  prevail  in  each  case 
of  recognized  religious  experience.  Now  all 
this  is  radically  wrong.  Religion  must  be 
brought  home  to  our  individualism  ;  it  must 
be  applied  to  that  inner  being,  which  under- 
lies all  external  manifestations  ;  it  must  form 
the  bond  of  contact  between  the  soul  and  God. 
And  to  do  this  effectually,  it  is  not  sufficient 
merely  to  produce  a  given  mental  attainment, 
or  to  create  an  intellectual  soundness,  but  it  is 
necessary  that  one's  individuality  be  preserved 
unmarred,  and  that  so  the  influences  of  re- 
ligion reach  and  act  upon  it. 

Pardon  me  for  this  theological  digression  ; 
I  will  leave  this  part  of  the  subject  to  your 
own  thought.  But,  believe  it,  young  men, 
man  is  created,  not  to  be  an  atom  of  some 
majestic  structure,  with  his  identity  crushed 
out  by  the  greater  mass  of  his  surroundings ; 
he  is  not  even  a  shining  particle  in  some  bright 
orb,  whose  brilliancy  engrosses  his  individual 
lustre ;  but  he  is  a  Living  Soul,  separate,  dis- 
tinct, and  independent,  to  a  certain  extent,  of 
every  other  soul,  with  distinct  traits  and  offi- 


CHARACTER.  '     115 

ces  of  character,  methods  of  influence  pecu- 
liar to  himself,  and  an  individual  mission  to 
perform.  While,  therefore,  you  may  copy  the 
good  example  of  those  whom  you  reverence, 
do  it,  not  because  it  is  their  example,  but  be- 
cause it  is  good.  Be  independent  in  thought 
and  action,  and  be  bound  to  those  about  you 
by  a  community  of  feeling,  and  not  by  a  tie 
of  conventionality. 

One  might  almost  venture  to  assert,  that  in 
the  general  absence  of  this  element  of  indi- 
viduality in  the  characters  of  our  people  is 
to  be  found  the  solution  of  the  problem  of 
our  partyism,  and  the  facility  with  which 
demagogues  in  politics,  and  quacks  in  the 
professions,  and  schemers  in  the  arts  of  spec- 
ulation, rob  the  people  of  their  rights  and 
health  and  substance.  It  is  the  secret  of  cau- 
cuses and  wire-pullings,  of  sectarian  triumphs 
and  dogmatic  meannesses,  of  honesty  and  rec- 
titude in  rags,  and  drunkenness  and  rowdyism 
ruling  the  nation.  It  leads  young  men  to  the 
billiard-saloons,  because  their  companions  fre- 
quent   them  ;    causes    them   to   incur   need- 


116  CHARACTER. 

less  expenses,  lest  "  others  "  should  jeer  them  ; 
teaches  them  vice  and  drunkenness,  because 
"  others "  are  adepts  in  them  ;  and  obliges 
them  to  waste  their  leisure  time  in  foolish  and 
extravagant  pursuits,  because  "others"  follow 
them.  Be  firm  in  your  individuality  ;  —  not 
selfish,  not  mean,  not  morose  ;  but  manly,  and 
erect,  and  independent  in  the  integrity  of  that 
nature  which  God  has  given  to  you. 

True  Manliness  is  an  element  in  the  for- 
mation of  character  which  is  liable  to  be  over- 
looked or  warped  by  the  selfish  practices  of 
the  world,  or  to  be  confounded  with  things 
which,  while  they  pass  in  the  estimation  of 
young  men  for  being  very  manly,  are  not 
so  at  all.  Thus,  it  is  not  manly,  whatever 
may  be  the  practice  of  the  world,  to  be  pro- 
fane ;  because  man  came  from  the  hand  of 
God,  receives  his  bounty  "fevery  hour,  is  his 
child,  and  the  heir  to  an  immortal  life  ;  and 
profanity,  while  it  adds  no  years  to  a  youth's 
existence,  is  irreverent  and  improper.  It  is  a 
maxim,  that  "  no  gentleman  will  swear  in  the 
presence  of  a  lady";  it  would  be  better  to 


CHARACTER.  117 

say,  "  no  gentleman  will  swear  at  all,"  for  if 
it  be  improper  and  unchaste  in  the  presence 
of  pure  mortals,  how  can  it  be  justified  at 
other  times,  when  God,  who  is  purer  than 
mortals,  is  ever  about  us  ?  Depend  upon  it, 
it  is  not  an  evidence  of  manly  character  either 
to  be  profane  or  dissipated ;  these  things  sink 
a  young  man  nearer  to  the  sphere  of  the  ani- 
mal, instead  of  raising  him  to  a  position  of 
lordship  over  the  lower  races.  Manliness  is 
not  to  be  measured  by  late  hours,  boisterous 
rowdyism,  big-sounding  words,  pistols,  and 
pipes ;  but  by  integrity  of  purpose,  resolute- 
ness of  will,  when  temptations  to  fraud  or 
vice  are  presented,  and  earnestness  of  applica- 
tion to  legitimate  work  and  wholesome  play. 
These  will  make  a  true  man,  when  the  fash- 
ionable follies,  and  dangerous,  if  not  dis- 
graceful, courses  in  which  many  young  men 
engage,  even  in  this  city,  will  result,  if  not 
in  premature  death,  at  least  in  permanent 
physical  and  moral  injury.  Be  manly,  if  it 
cost  you  the  loss  of  all  companionship  ;  and 
if,  beyond  your  own  pleasures,  the  practices 


118  CHARACTER. 

of  trade  involve  the  loss  of  rectitude,  then  be 
manly  enough  to  leave  your  employment,  and 
seek  an  honest  living,  if  it  be  a  poorer  one,  in 
some  other  avocation.  Have  a  strong,  earnest 
purpose  of  rectitude  and  justice  underlying 
all  your  acts,  and  shining  through  your  mi- 
nutest deeds;  so  that  it  shall  not  be  necessary 
for  you  to  advertise  your  Christianity,  but 
men  seeing  you  may  take  knowledge  that 
you  are  permeated  with  Christian  principle, 
and  not  glossed  over  with  Christian  profession. 
Have  a  purpose  of  ultimateness  in  all  your 
life-plans.  Look  beyond  a  few  months  or 
years  to  the  aggregate  of  your  existence ;  con- 
sider what  your  whole  life  may  accomplish  ; 
and  remember  that  you  cannot  detach  months 
or  years  from  the  grand  sum  of  your  exist- 
ence ;  that  you  cannot  recover  wasted  time ; 
that  there  is  no  provision  in  the  providence  of 
God  for  renewing  the  hours  that  are  past;  and 
remember  too,  while  we  speak,  the  present 
becomes  the  past,  and  the  future  is  present; 
and  that  all  time  is  wasted  which  is  not  de- 
voted to  some   pm'pose   of  usefulness.     Em- 


CHARACTER.  119 

ployment  and  pleasure  may  consume  some 
portion  of  our  time,  and  yet  the  time  will  not 
be  wasted  if  the  employment  is  serving  the 
great  purposes  of  life,  or  the  pleasure  minis- 
tering to  our  strength.  But  dissipation  of 
mind  or  body  is  a  thief;  robbing  us  of  jewels 
of  such  inestimable  worth  that  empires  cannot 
replace  them.  Finally,  a  recognition  of  the 
immortality  of  character  is  one  of  its  most 
important  elements,  and  the  grandest  incentive 
to  a  true  life.  A  noble  building  or  a  beautiful 
picture  is  the  em^bodiment  of  an  artist's  idea, 
and  in  it  the  thought  of  the  artist  lives  while 
the  fabric  of  his  creation  endures ;  the  work, 
however,  is  perishable,  and  the  human  frame 
even  more  frail,  so  that,  long  ages  before  time 
shall  have  disintegrated  the  particles  of  his 
work,  the  name  of  the  author  may  have  passed 
from  the  memory  of  men.  But  a  pure  and 
strong  and  blessed  character  is  imperishable, 
and  in  it  our  lives  may  outlast  the  Pyramids, 
and  outlive  a  thousand  generations.  Slowly 
and  by  degrees  the  character  of  the  world, 
like  that  of  individuals,  is  formed,  and  every 


120  CHARACTER. 

good  or  bad  life  advances  or  hinders  its  prog- 
ress. And  how  much  of  solemnity  is  wrapped 
up  in  this  thought  ?  You  and  I  cannot  be 
bad  or  good  to  our  own  loss  or  profit  merely ; 
but  the  interests  of  the  world  are  linked  in 
with  our  individual  growth,  so  that  we  must 
bless  or  curse  it.  You  cannot  live  to  your- 
selves, you  cannot  die  to  yourselves.  Your 
life  must  send  its  currents  throbbing  through 
the  social  fabric,  to  be  felt  till  the  end  of  time. 
Not  to  your  own  sad  and  bitter  injury  alone 
can  you  be  a  drunkard,  gambler,  or  miser; 
the  world  —  the  world  —  must /eeZ  your  life! 
Not  alone  the  great  and  the  famous  of  the 
past  live  with  us,  —  not  only  have  Plato  and 
Socrates,  inciting  us  to  the  pursuit  of  virtue 
and  wisdom,  —  not  only  Moses,  teaching  faith 
in  Israel's  God,  —  not  only  Jesus,  revealing 
God  and  heaven  and  immortality,  —  but  thou- 
sands of  nameless  ones,  who  perished  at  the 
stake,  and  in  the  arena,  or  patiently  endured 
and  toiled  in  lowly  cares,  and  whose  tomb- 
stones, all  mossed  over,  lie  crumbling  in  ob- 
scure graveyards,  and  cease  to  tell  the  history 


CHAKACTER.  121 

of  the  sleeping  dust  beneath  them,  —  these 
have  all  sent  their  influences  down  to  us, 
blessing  us  in  a  thousand  ways  we  think 
not  of,  —  making  virtue  preferable  to  vice,  and 
exalting  goodness  above  evil  in  the  estimation 
of  the  world. 

How  much  has  been  done  for  virtue  since 
the  days  of  Spartan  morals  and  Roman  licen- 
tiousness !  How  many  corrupting  customs 
have  been  dethroned  !  How  many  false  prac- 
tices have  been  repudiated  by  the  world  ! 
How  much  that  was  wrong  has  been  con- 
quered by  the  Gospel  of  Christ  I  And  all  this 
is  the  result  of  individual  character,  and  has 
been  accomplished  by  slow  and  patient  indi- 
vidual faith  and  toil.  And  oh!  how  much 
remains  for  the  same  process  to  accomplish  I 
Believe  me,  my  brethren,  we  are  not  unin- 
terested spectators  of  the  world's  struggles, 
but  participants  in  them.  However  calmly 
we  may  close  our  eyes,  and  fold  our  hands, 
and  grudge  our  energies,  we  are  taking  part 
in  the  grand  interests  of  God,  of  Christ,  and 
of  humanity.     As  the  process  of  vegetation 


122  CHARACTER. 

proceeds  silently  and  surely,  while  we  sleep, 
even  so  our  own  characters  are  unfolding, 
whether  we  labor  for  good  or  evil,  —  whether 
we  have  a  positive  life  or  a  negative  one. 
Just  as  nature  is  always  active,  and,  when 
the  earth  is  not  properly  cultivated,  will  cause 
it  to  produce  weeds,  so  these  characters 
of  ours  will  live,  will  develop  their  vitality 
in  some  direction,  and  every  day's  experience 
gives  a  greater  intensity  to  their  direction.  If 
we  give  them  an  habitually  religious  tone,  their 
reverence  will  grow  imperceptibly  stronger ; 
if  we  slacken  our  moral  grasp,  if  we  for  a 
season  lay  the  reins  upon  the  necks  of  our 
passions,  they  will  carry  us  farther  than  we  an- 
ticipated, —  they  may  carry  us  beyond  control. 
Character  is  the  governor  of  our  outward 
expression;  we  may  fence  ourselves  about 
with  worldly  prudence,  but  the  real  man  will 
show  itself  in  spite  of  us.  Let  a  man  cherish 
dishonesty  in  his  heart,  and  his  dishonesty  will, 
somehow  or  other,  find  expression  in  his  life ; 
if  not  in  stealing,  then  in  meanness  ;  if  not  in 
large  frauds,  then  in  sixpenny  cheatings.     We 


CHARACTER.  123 

may  disguise  it  from  others,  and  even  from 
ourselves,  for  a  season ;  but  sooner  or  later  it 
will  appear  that  we  are  just  what  our  princi- 
ples make  us.  And  this  involves  a  truth  more 
momentous  than  questions  of  dogma  and 
form.  It  is  this  actual  condition  of  our 
character,  —  this  real  position  of  our  inner 
being,  our  spiritual  life,  —  the  state  of  the 
actual  unseen  motive-springs  which  lie  at  the 
basis  of  all  our  outward  expression,  —  which  is 
the  important  matter.  Compared  with  this,  it 
is  comparatively  of  little  consequence  whether 
a  man  be  a  Christian  or  a  Pagan  or  a  Jew ; 
for  a  bad  Pagan  or  a  bad  Jew  is  quite  as 
good  as  a  bad  Christian. 

Remember,  then,  that,  however  you  live, 
your  lives  cannot  be  without  results.  Be 
they  ever  so  lowly,  and  to  your  own  estima- 
tion insignificant,  your  experiences  are  of 
infinite  worth.  In  the  lowliest  places  of  life 
you  may  and  must  create  characters,  disposi- 
tions, and  affections  which  shall  outreach  the 
temporary  and  influence  the  permanent.  In 
the  future  world,  we  shall  be  the  same  per- 


124  CHARACTER. 

sons  we  are  here,  else  must  all  identity  be 
lost.  We  are  every  day,  therefore,  creating 
tastes  and  forming  attachments  which  must 
permeate  our  being  and  give  character  to 
our  spiritual  existence.  We  may  have  a 
settled  purpose  of  goodness,  toward  which  we 
are  slowly  and  almost  imperceptibly  assimi- 
lating, but  our  character  is  forming.  We 
have  a  life  which  reaches  far  down  below 
the  cares  and  customs  of  our  external  exist- 
ence,—  there  is  something  within  us  with 
which  we  commune  at  times,  and  whose 
presence  and  government  we  recognize  and 
obey  in  our  lives.  It  is  all  important  to  a 
young  man  that  this  inner  ruling  principle 
should  be  right.  Make  the  fountain  pure, 
the  stream  cannot  fail  to  be  pure ;  make  the 
tree  good,  the  fruit  cannot  be  bad.  Be  true 
to  your  nature  and  to  your  manhood,  and  you 
will  be  true  to  God.  Live,  I  pray  you,  as  men 
for  whom  life  has  a  reality;  who  look  upon 
existence  as  reaching  beyond  a  little  food  and 
dress  and  accumulation,  and  feel  that  you  are 
bound  up  in  a  common  brotherhood  of  interest 


CHARACTER.  125 

and  duty  with  the  race ;  so  that  injuring  your- 
selves you  injure  others,  and  defrauding  others 
you  rob  yourselves.  How  different  an  aspect 
would  our  social  relations  wear,  if  we  some- 
times remembered  that  our  characters  are  our 
only  immortality.  O  that  we  could  feel  it 
in  all  its  intensity,  this  great  truth  of  the  con- 
tinuity of  character!  Then  we  should  not 
divide  oar  life  into  the  earthly  and  the 
heavenly,  nor  restrict  the  external  life  to  a  de- 
pendence upon  the  limitations  of  poor  human 
thought,  but  we  should  bring  the  future  into 
contact  with  the  present,  and  so  elevate  all 
our  pursuits  with  the  inspiration  of  the  Divine. 
Go  forth,  then,  and  "  be  strong,  quit  you 
like  men,"  for.  while  all  the  outward  shall 
fade  as  the  leaves  do  fall  in  the  autumn,  your 
characters  can  never  die.  All  else  may  fail. 
Knowledge  may  be  so  superseded  by  a  grander 
science  as  to  be  of  little  worth,  beauty  may 
pass  away,  granite  and  iron  may  moulder 
back  to  dust,  but  the  spirits  that  listen  here  to- 
day shall  never  die.  Think  of  it,  this  most 
divine  heirship,  and  say,  "  What  manner  of 
11* 


126  CHARACTER. 

persons  ought  ye  to  be  in  all  holy  conversa- 
tion and  godliness?"  A  great  and  glorious 
capacity  is  given  to  every  one  of  you  ;  a  press- 
ing emergency  is  everywhere  about  you ;  a 
law  of  your  being  obliges  you  to  labor  in 
some  direction, — will  not  permit  you  to  be 
idl6;  and  what  will  you  do?  O,  let  your 
goodness  live  for  ever ;  let  its  pulsations  be 
strong  and  regular ;  and  the  work  you  do 
in  weakness,  and  without  daring  to  aspire  to 
the  ostentation  of  established  forms  and  recog- 
nized modes,  God's  providence  will  abundant- 
ly protect,  and  cause  your  lives  to  be  felt  long 
ages  after  men  shall  have  forgotten  your 
names,  and  the  stone  that  affection  placed 
above  your  poor  framework  has  returned  to 
its  former  particles. 


LECTURE    VI 


AN   APPEAL. 

"  Another  peculiar  excellency  of  our  religion  is,  that  it  prescribes  an 
accurate  rule  of  life,  most  agreeable  to  reason  and  to  our  nature,  most 
conducive  to  our  welfare  and  content,  tending  to  procure  each  man's 
private  good,  and  to  promote  the  public  benefit  of  all,  by  the  strict  ob- 
servance whereof,  we  bring  our  human  nature  to  a  resemblance  of  the 
Divine."  —  Bakeow. 

In  closing  this  course  of  Lectures,  I  wish 
to  impress  upon  you  that  we  have  been  con- 
sidering facts  which  are  of  real  consequence, 
and  that,  while  our  attention  has  not  been 
given  exclusively  to  matters,  of  direct  theo- 
logical bearing,  we  have  been  dealing  with 
subjects  of  religious  significance  and  conse- 
quence. I  have  endeavored  to  speak  to  you 
in  words  of  practical  soberness,  because  I 
have  felt  that  the  topics  upon  which  I  have 
dwelt  were  of  immediate  and  pressing  ur- 
gency.    Other  words  there  are  which  I  should 


128  AN    APPEAL. 

like  to  speak  ;  there  are  other  topics  which 
need  treatment ;  but  the  time  has  not  come 
for  their  utterance.  Let  me,  however,  cau- 
tion you  against  harboring  the  impression,  be- 
cause I  have  spoken  to  your  known^  wants, 
and  have  dealt  with  every-day  facts  and 
commonplace  words,  that  therefore  I  ignore 
religion.  The  difference  of  my  position  in 
this  matter  from  that  of  some  who  have  seen 
fit  to  censure  me  is,  perhaps,  just  this,  that  I 
believe  you  can  '•'•have  religion"  to  aid  your 
spiritual  growth,  and  to  assist  you  under  your 
difficulties,  when  you  make  true  and  earnest 
efforts  for  your  fullest  expansion  of  intellect, 
as  well  as  when  you  limit  your  endeavors  to 
the  cultivation  of  the  emotions ;  that,  Avhen  , 
religion  has  work  to  do,  like  yourselves,  it  as- 
sumes a  working  garb,  but  is  none  the  less 
religion  in  its  work  than  in  the  temple,  as  the 
laborer  is  not  less  a  man  in  his  working-jacket 
than  when  he  dons  his  Sunday  broadcloth.  I 
appeal  to  you,  therefore,  to  make  the  bearings 
of  rehgion  upon  your  practical  life  a  matter 
of  thought   and   reflection.      Ask   yourselves 


AN   APPEAL.  129 

what  is  the  religious  significance  of  your 
lives.  Consider  whether  you  ought  to  regard 
religion  as  a  distinct  operation  of  your  voli^ 
tion,  or  a  power  growing  and  strengthening 
with  your  toil  and  development,  fostering  your 
purposes  of  rectitude,  and  inciting  you  to 
strive  for  excellence,  from  love  of  that  which 
is  ever  beyond.  When  we  limit  religion  to 
Sunday,  and  Sunday  to  strictly  theological 
speculation,  we  run  the  risk  of  creating  the 
impression  that  this  is  the  extent  of  religion. 
But  why,  I  ask,  may  we  not  see  religious  im- 
port in  every  day's  work,  in  every  good  pur- 
pose, and  every  pure  thought  ?  It  may  be 
good  —  and  it  is  good  —  to  sing  hymns  and 
offer  prayers  in  concert ;  but  there  is  a  paean 
that  might  ascend  to  the  Infinite,  from  the 
hearts  of  all  in  their  toil,  which  too  often  the 
merely  legal  tone  of  religion  smothers,  and 
offers  the  empty  tinkling  of  hollow  services 
in  its  place ;  there  is  a  prayer  which  may  arise 
clear  and  distinct  above  the  clamor  of  pon- 
derous hammers,  and  the  screeching  of  hoarse 
machinery,  — "  Thy  will  be  done  on  earth"; 


AN    APPEAL. 


but  too  often  religion  is  placed  in  the  clouds, 
and  he  who  dares  bring  it  to  earth  must  run 
the  risk  of  the  anathema  of  the  Church. 

But  religion,  and  the  adaptedness  of  religion 
to  bless  and  ^strengthen  a  working  life,  and 
the  necessity  Tor  the  co-operation  of  religion 
in  order  to  raise^hat  life  above  the  existence 
of  the  animal,  are  not  less  facts,  because  as 
facts  they  are  too  often  misunderstood  and 
misapplied.  Whatever  may  be  the  intellect- 
ual difficulties  thrown  around  the  subject  by 
the  apparent  forgetfulness  of  humanity  in  the 
metaphysics  Ipf  theology,  —  whatever  may  be 
the  repugnance  iwhich  what  you  may  deem  the 
improper  temper  of  theologians  has  created  in 
your  minds  about  the  whole  subject  of  relig- 
ion,—  and  whatever  may  be  the  mutual  re- 
lations ofrtheology  and  religion,  —  too  often 
confoiandedi  as  the  same  thing,  —  depend  upon 
it,  you  cannot  do  without  the  religious  spirit 
and  power  in  your  lives.  Very  often,  indeed, 
we  do  not  recognize  the  presence  of  religion, 
when  it  is  working  its  most  potent  influences ; 
but  without  that  presence,  recognized  or  un- 


AN   APPEAL.  131 

recognized,  we  cannot  be  said  to  have  a  full 
life;  indeed,  without  its  recognized  presence, 
our  lives  are  shorn  of  their  fairest  attributes, 
and  our  experiences  lack  their  finest  features. 

You  need  a  manly,  earnest,  sincere  religious 
character  above  all  things,  and  more  than  all 
things.  And  you  can  have  that  character, 
not  only  without  a  forfeiture  of  your  manli- 
ness, but  as  its  highest  type.  Learn  to  regard 
it,  I  pray  you,  as  your  natural  and  normal 
condition,  —  as  independent  of  rites  and  forms 
and  theories,  but  reaching  down  to  the  cares 
and  perplexities  of  our  common  life,  and  ex- 
alting the  transitory  to  a  position  of  perma- 
nence. Learn  to  cherish  it  as  the  fountain  of 
good  principle,  and  let  it  expand  the  whole 
range  of  your  being,  and  teach  you  to  regard 
truth  and  rectitude  as  of  an  innate  worth  and 
beauty  far  transcending  temporary  success  or 
loss,  pain  or  pleasure. 

Be  religious,  that  you  may  have  a  proper 
standard  of  effort,  that  you  may  learn  to  judge 
of  right,  not  by  success,  but  by  truth.  Do 
not  be  deceived,  I  pray  you,  into  shipwreck, 


132#  AN   APPEAL. 

by  false  lights  along  the  coast ;  let  not  a  false 
glitter  betray  you  into  fraud  or  knavery ;  know 
that  a  man  may  be  a  successful  swindler,  and 
yet  be  none  the  less  a  swindler  because  of  his 
success.  It  is  the  motive,  and  not  the  result, 
by  which  you  are  to  judge  actions  ;  and  while 
you  cannot  penetrate  to  another's  motive,  you 
may  always  analyze  your  own. 

Make  religion,  therefore,  a  matter  of  calm, 
serious  thought,  and  mature  deliberation  I 
Let  it  have  the  outward  expression  which 
best  suits  your  temperament ;  but  have  it  en- 
shrined at  the  seat  of  your  life,  as  its  control- 
ling principle,  and  I  care  little  whether  it  finds 
its  manifestation  in  shoutings  or  in  medita- 
tion. Make  religion  your  deliberate  choice, 
not  because  of  the  future  only,  but  because 
of  the  present.  I  do  not  urge  you  to  do  so  in 
order  to  shun  the  hell  of  the  future,  because 
my  conscience  will  not  allow  me  to  offer  you 
so  mercenary  a  motive.  I  do  not  wish  you 
to  make  the  rewards  of  religion  a  matter  of 
bargain  and  trade,  and  to  incite  you  to  pursue 
virtue  as  men  sink  coal-mines,  because,  while  it 


AN    APPEAL.  133 

is  laborious,  it  is  also  a  profitable  investment ; 
but  I  beseech  you  to  be   religious,   because 
without  it  there  is  no  true  life,  because  God's 
love  entitles  him  to  a  return  of  your  affections, 
and  because  the  power  and  tenderness  of  God, 
manifested  in   Christ  Jesus,  ought  to  quicken 
your  mortal  aspirations  into  sympathy  with 
that  effluence  of  the  Most  High,  which,  dwell- 
ing in  the  Son  richly  in  all  fulness,  is  all  about 
us  now,  as  well  as  when  he  went  about  doing 
good  in  Palestine.     Be  religious,  then,  "  for  it 
is  not  a  vain  thing,"  it  is  not  a  mere  expedient 
to  save  you  from  the  consequences  of  sin, — 
"  it  is  your  life  "  ;  it  will  purify  your  inner, 
spiritual  reality  of  the   desire  for  sin,   and  so 
will  obviate  the  necessity  for  an  escape  from 
its  consequences.    It  will  make  your  lives  pure 
and  useful,  and,  accomplishing  this  for  you, 
you  need  not  fear  to  die,  for  your  character  is 
immortal,  and  no  contingency  of  sickness  or 
death  can  affect  its  sure  results. 

I  appeal  to  you  to  cultivate  your  mental 
powers,  and  to  avail  yourselves  of  the  educa- 
tional means  which  are  spread  before  you. 

12 


134  AN    APPEAL. 

I  have  already  shown  you  that  culture  is 
practicable  ;  and  surely  you  cannot  prize 
sloth  and  useless  dissipating  follies  higher 
than  the  power  which  is  the  only  sure  indi- 
cation of  nobility  among  men.  You  may 
grovel  and  get  gold,  and  men  may  worship 
your  shrewdness  and  palliate  your  cheatings, 
—  because  you  are  so  successful  ;  but  de- 
pend upon  it,  the  hour  will  come  when  you 
will  curse  the  folly  that  chained  you  to  such 
senseless  and  useless  serfdom.  Culture  is  the 
only  true  manhood,  and  the  only  worthy  in- 
vestment of  one's  ability ;  and  he  who  seeks 
and  obtains  this,  has  a  wealth  which  can  never 
diminish  ;  he  has  a  possession  which  no  mor- 
tal vicissitude  can  deprive  him  of ;  and  if  it  be 
chastened  by  a  reverent  and  filial  trust  in 
God,  he  has  attained  an  eminence  which  em- 
pires cannot  purchase.  But  aside  from  its 
effects  upon  themselves,  I  would  that  the 
workingmen  of  this  great  valley  rightly  per- 
ceived their  duty  to  acquire  culture.  Here, 
where  the  seat  of  the  empire  over  the  conti- 
nent must  at  last  be  planted,  —  here,  midway 


AN   APPEAL.  135 

between  the  two  great  seas  of  the  world, 
where  the  iron-horse  must  pause  in  his  jour- 
ney with  the  silks  and  teas  and  spices  of 
India,  and  meet  upon  midway  ground  the 
productions  of  the  Atlantic  countries  seeking 
a  passage  to  the  Pacific,  —  here,  where  towns 
and  cities  in  ten  years  spring  up  over  the  ru- 
ins of  solitary  log-huts,  —  here,  where  the  chil- 
dren of  many  countries  and  divers  tongues 
find  the  long-sought  "  Novis  Atlantis,"  —  here, 
where  worth  and  industry  must  at  last  find 
their  proper  level,  —  here,  if  anywhere,  the  la- 
borer should  be  educated,  and  the  unity  of 
muscle  and  mind  should  be  recognized.  But 
we  must  look  to  our  own  efforts,  and  not 
depend  upon  external  assistance  for  the  ac- 
complishment of  the  work.  You  have  a 
grander  mission  than  the  building  of  rail- 
roads and  canals,  or  even  the  erection  of 
sphinxes  and  pyramids.  The  hearts  which 
are  beating  in  the  Mississippi  Valley  to-day 
are  destined  to  send  their  pulses  throbbing 
through  a  grander  civilization  than  Rome  or 
Greece  ever  dreamed  of.     You  may  die, — 


136  AN    APPEAL. 

and  will  die,  —  but  your  thought  and  culture 
will  outlive  the  ages ;  as  your  buildings  stand 
when  the  scaffoldings  are  destroyed.  Upon 
the  amount  of  energy  bestowed  in  the  found- 
ing of  libraries  and  mechanics'  institutes  and 
free  schools,  depends  the  future  of  this  key  to 
the  Union.  Let  the  INIississippi  Valley  sink  to 
the  intellectual  condition  of  Mexico,  and  the 
growth  of  our  country  will  be  a  growth  of 
death  ;  but  let  the  West  be  true  to  its  duty, 
and  it  can  hold  North  and  South  to  their  equi- 
librium, without  pandering  to  the  fanaticisms 
of  either. 

Here  there  is  less  excuse  for  the  working- 
man  or  apprentice  who  does  not  apply  him- 
self to  securing  his  culture  ;  because  here  we 
can  realize,  what  elsewhere  seems  but  a  philo- 
sophic dream,  that  as  all  art  has  grown  out 
of  the  first  rude  essays  after  excellence,  so  the 
difference  between  the  higher  and  lower  orders 
of  toil  is  just  the  difference  of  the  culture  they 
involve.  The  mechanic  may  work  his  way 
to  the  highest  position  of  mortal  distinction. 
It  is  not  a  disgrace  to  the  judge  that  he  has 


AN    APPEAL.  137 

pounded  the  anvil,  or  to  the  minister  that  he 
has  worked  at  the  printing-press ;  and  so  all 
the  mechanical  employments  may  become 
preparatory  schools  to  the  responsible  posi- 
tions of  society ;  and  this  must  not  only  con- 
tinue, but  increase,  as  the  creation  of  new 
arteries  of  trade  causes  the  currents  of  pros- 
perity to  multiply.  We  need  educated,  clear- 
headed, and  studious  workingmen  more  than 
we  need  new  territory,  —  and  the  means  for 
the  increase  of  these  will  be  more  beneficially 
applied  than  an  increase  of  our  army  and 
navy.  Let  us  have  these  means  in  schools 
and  colleges,  in  free  libraries  and  lectures, 
and  the  investment  will  pay  better  interest 
than  bank-stock  or  railroad  bonds. 

I  appeal  to  society,  to  remove  the  false  and 
improper  distinctions  which  are  based,  not  on 
merit,  but  upon  possession.  Let  wealth  be 
honored,  when  it  is  the  result  of  honorable 
effort.  Let  it  be  reverenced,  as  the  represent- 
ative of  energy  and  worth,  but  not  as  an  in- 
trinsic value  in  itself.  Teach  these  young 
men,  I  pray  you,  to  regard  wealth  as  the  re- 

12* 


138  AN   APPEAL. 

ward  of  integrity  and  principle,  —  but  not 
as  the  end  of  life.  Do  not  permit  them  to 
harbor  the  impression  that  riches  obtained  in 
any  way,  —  stained  with  fraud  and  dishonesty, 
tainted  with  meanness  and  hypocrisy,  and 
loaded  with  iniquity  and  extortion,  —  can 
purchase  the  esteem  of  good  men,  and  the 
countenance  of  "  good  society."  Let  the  re- 
proach of  social  disfranchisement  fall  upon  the 
rogues  without  the  penitentiary  walls,  as  well 
as  upon  those  within  them.  Let  the  honest 
man  who  strives  for  an  expansion  of  his 
mental  and  moral  life  be  honored,  however 
lowly  his  condition  and  however  homely  his 
garments.  Society  owes  it  to  itself  to  reform 
the  tendency  of  existing  ideas  of  wealth  and 
position,  or  it  will  entail  upon  the  coming 
generations  the  sad  retribution  of  licentious- 
ness without  limit,  and  vice  without  a  check. 
Once  destroy  the  conservative  element  of 
social  life,  once  establish  the  fact  that  society 
rests  upon  money,  and  not  upon  merit,  and 
you  have  laid  the  axe  at  the  root  of  the  tree 
of  our  republican  hopes.     For  with  us  who 


AN    APPEAL.  139 

have  no  hereditary  and  arbitrary  distinctions 
of  birth,  there  must  be  a  nobility  of  worth, 
as  the  balance-wheel  of  our  social  life,  or  we 
shall  fall  into  a  Red-Republicanism  of  unprin- 
cipled scrambling  for  wealth,  without  regard 
for  virtue  and  integrity.  You  cannot  escape 
the  responsibilities  of  your  position,  you 
cannot  harbor  a  spirit  of  meanness  and  nig- 
gardliness in  providing  for  the  education  of 
the  working  classes,  without  reaping  sad 
and  bitter  losses  in  consequence.  You  owe 
it  to  the  apprentices  and  clerks  of  your  coun- 
try to  provide  wholesome  nutriment  for  their 
thoughts,  and  just  and  pure  examples,  dis- 
criminating between  the  seeming  and  the  re- 
ality, for  their  lives.  You  owe  them  these 
things,  not  as  a  benevolence,  but  as  a  duty. 
Fail  to  discharge  this  obligation,  and  you 
will  inflict  an  injury  upon  your  country  which 
no  growth  of  empire  can  compensate  for. 

I  appeal  to  society  to  provide  wholesome 
recreations  for  those  whose  days  are  spent  in 
toil.  Give  from  the  abundance  of  your  in- 
creasing possessions  the  means  for  warming 


140  AN    APPEAL. 

and  lighting  and  furnishing  good  reading- 
rooms,  which  shall  be  open  to  all  whose  de- 
portment is  proper,  free  of  expense  ;  it  will 
prove  a  better  investment  than  building  new 
jails  and  court-houses.  You  can  do  it,  and 
you  ought  to  do  it.  There  is  no  sufficient 
reason  for  leaving  our  community  without  a 
single  proper  place  of  resort  for  our  clerks 
and  artisans.  Look  at  the  matter  as  it  exists. 
Take  a  population  of  eight  or  ten  thousand 
people.  The  workers  of  the  community  are 
crowded,  by  the  high  prices  of  boarding,  in- 
to small  and  inconvenient  and  ill-ventilated 
chambers,  or  sleep  in  the  places  of  their  toil. 
When  the  day's  work  is  ended  and  the  store 
or  workshop  closed,  and  the  spirits  need  a 
change  from  the  exhausting  and  monotonous 
labor  in  which  the  day  has  been  spent, 
where,  I  ask,  are  they  to  seek  recreation? 
You  virtually  condemn  them  to  seek  bil- 
liard-saloons and  bar-rooms,  or,  if  some  good 
mother's  prayer  lingers  about  their  hearts  and 
restrains  their  feet  from  these  paths  of  folly 
and  vice,   they  have   no  alternative   but  the 


AN  APrExU..  141 

formation  of  store-loafing  habits,  and  uselessly 
exhaust  the  evening  in  uttering  and  in  listening 
to  idle  talk  and  foolish  jarrings.  You  know 
that  this  picture  is  not  overdrawn,  and  you 
must  correct  the  evil  or  incur  the  responsi- 
bility of  becoming  accessories  to  the  waste  of 
countless  lives.  In  a  few  years,  the  young 
men  of  the  West  will  have  the  destiny  of  the 
country  in  their  hands,  and  then  when  dying 
you  may  bequeath  to  education  what  you  can 
no  longer  use  ;  but  it  will  be  too  late  to  accom- 
plish the  work  which  you  may  now  live  to 
see  rightly  performed.  Do  not  wait  for  the 
end  of  life  to  discharge  your  social  obliga- 
tions, but  perform  them  now,  and  let  men 
have  more  reason  to  thank  God  for  your  life 
than  for  your  death.  Work  luhile  the  day  lasts. 
I  appeal  to  society  to  supply  motives  of 
thrift,  and  to  discountenance  the  habits  of 
reckless  extravagance  which  are  fast  becoming 
standards  of  respectability.  Our  lives  are 
saddened  and  shortened  by  the  arbitrary  rules 
of  dress  and  living,  which,  without  being  any 
better  for  anybody,  involve  those  whose  means 


142  AK  APPEAL. 

are  limited  in  ruinous  expenses.  A  clerk  or 
an  apprentice  will  often  spend  a  month's 
wages  for  some  poor  imitation  of  an  article 
he  sees  in  the  possession  of  a  wealthier  man ; 
and  so  many  young  men  waste  their  whole 
income,  and  being  furnished  with  means  to 
carry  out  their  extravagance  by  their  unwise 
parents,  they  are  a  constant  temptation  to 
their  companions,  who,  having  no  such  re- 
sources to  fall  back  upon,  commit  acts  of  folly 
which  finally  entail  that  most  ruinous  attend- 
ant upon  a  young  man's  career,  debt,  and 
sink  in  early  manhood  to  a  position  of  de- 
pendence, when  they  might  have  risen  to  a 
competency.  I  should  be  glad,  indeed,  to  see 
a  greater  amount  of  manly  independence  upon 
the  part  of  poor  young  men  ;  I  should  rejoice 
to  see  them  spurning  the  temptation  to  dress 
for  a  part  which  they  cannot  perform  ;  but 
society  must  inculcate  by  example  and  pre- 
cept the  true  ideas  of  respectability  and  inde- 
pendence, before  we  have  a  right  to  look  for 
their  general  recognition  among  our  working- 
men.     Let  us  teach  our  young  mechanics  and 


AN   APPEAL.  143 

laborers  that  they  may  be  neatly  and  respect- 
ably clothed  without  spending  all  their  earn- 
ings in  chains  and  rings  and  perfumery;  let 
us  show  the  wives  of  workingmen  that  satins 
and  velvets  are  not  the  only  sure  indications 
of  gentility.  You  may  do  this,  and  do  it 
effectually,  and  while  not  forfeiting  a  luxury 
which  your  ample  means  may  afford ;  yet  by 
keeping  within  limits,  and  by  making  quality 
and  texture  the  object  of  expense,  rather  than 
show  and  a  gairish  overloading  of  quantity, 
a  proper  medium  may  be  kept  and  a  right 
standard  of  expense  established.  But  without 
a  reform,  depend  upon  it  our  young  men  will 
learn  to  prize  the  external  appearance  more 
than  the  internal  reality,  and  the  means  and 
time  which  ought  to  be  expended  upon  their 
preparation  for  the  responsibilities  of  life  will 
be  wasted  upon  dress  and  livery-stable  ex- 
travagances. 

Finally,  I  appeal  to  Christianity,  to  come 
from  the  clouds  down  to  our  work-day  world, 
and  to  inspire  our  toiling  existence  with  its 
most  divine  energy.     Let  the  religion  of  the 


144  AN   APPEAL. 

New  Testament  cease  to  be  directed  exclu- 
sively to  the  intellect,  and  let  it  lay  hold  of 
the  interests  and  perplexities  of  our  present 
life.  I  would  make  it  none  the  less  Divine 
because  needed  by  humanity,  —  nor  would  I 
lift  it  above  the  great  wants  and  ever-chan- 
ging emergencies  of  the  race  because  of  its 
Divinity,  —  but  I  would  have  it  recognized  as 
the  friend  of  man,  when  preaching  homely 
wisdom  and  practical  morality,  as  well  as 
when  speculating  over  human  nature  in  the 
abstract  and  heaven  in  the  future.  There 
are  great  and  pressing  wants  and  earnest  ne- 
cessities all  around  us,  and  true  Christian  men 
have  no  time  to  squabble  over  the  differences 
of  their  theories  ;  let  them  apply  the  working 
power  of  Christianity  to  the  social  wrongs 
and  the  dangerous  tendencies  which  beset  the 
young  man  ;  let  them  make  Christianity  felt 
in  society,  and  let  its  great  principles  and 
divine  power  be  recognized  in  the  lowliest  of 
the  occupations  of  life  ;  let  them  demonstrate 
that  Luther  was  not  mistaken  when  he  ele- 
vated the  substance,  the  fact,  of  Christianity 


AN    APPEAL.  145 

to  its  rightful  position  of  pre-eminence  over 
the  merely  speculative,  by  saying,  "  The  maid- 
servant who  sweeps  the  house,  with  the  love 
of  God  in  her  heart  as  its  controlling  princi- 
ple, is  as  truly  serving  him,  and  as  surely  ac- 
cepted of  him,  as  the  preacher  dispensing  his 
Gospel,  or  the  martyr  defending  his  truth." 
Go  forth.  Christian  men,  and  let  the  world 
judge  of  your  Christianity  by  the  rule  estab- 
lished by  Christ  himself,  —  let  your  works, 
not  your  words,  testify  to  the  truth  of  religion. 
Cease  your  poor  jarrings,  that  the  grave  will 
soon  close  over,  and  learn  the  spirit  of  Him 
who  proved  his  mission  by  his  deeds.  Re- 
member that  the  Gospel  is  many-sided,  while 
your  vision  is  limited ;  that  to  restrict  its  truth 
to  your  thought  is  to  claim  equality  with  its 
Author.  There  are  human  w^ants  and  perplex- 
ities that  you  may  never  have  dreamed  of; 
there  are  glories  in  the  Gospel  that  you  may 
have  no  eye  for.  O,  then,  let  it  go  forth  to 
bless  all !  Do  not  shackle  it  with  your  poor 
speculations  ;  do  not  limit  the  mode  of  its 
application  to   your   own    temperament   and 

13 


146  AN    APPEAL. 

habits  of  thought ;  remember  that  all  men  are 
not  alike,  and  cannot  think  alike ;  but  let 
Christianity  be  the  philanthropy  of  heaven, 
let  it  bless  and  strengthen  those  whom  your 
own  theories  may  not  reach,  let  it  comfort 
those  upon  whose  ears  your  words  fall  coldly 
and  ineffectually.  Labor  appeals  to  Chris- 
tianity, it  stretches  up  its  hands,  and  cries  for 
the  benediction  and  counsel  of  Heaven.  Shall 
they  be  withheld  for  false  and  foolish  notions 
of  human  dignity  ?  Shall  the  clergy  fear  to 
stain  their  lawn  and  broadcloth  by  speaking 
to  the  sons  of  toil  on  the  first  day,  when 
Christ  rebuked  the  Pharisees  of  Jerusalem  for 
forgetting  humanity  in  their  Sabbath-day 
zeal? 

Ah,  no  I  "  Say  not  ye  there  are  four  months, 
and  then  cometh  the  harvest;  behold,  I  say 
unto  you,  lift  up  your  eyes  and  look  on  the 
fields,  for  they  are  white  already  unto  harvest, 
and  he  that  reapeth  receiveth  wages  and  gath- 
ereth  fruit  unto  life  eternal." 

THE    END. 


CROSBY,    NICHOLS, 


A    LIST    OF    BOOKS 

RECENTLY    PUBLISHED    BY 

CEOSBY,    NICHOLS,    &    CO., 

Ill   WASHINGTON  STREET,  BOSTON. 


A   MEMOIR  OF  WILLIAxM   ELLERY    CHANNING,  with 
Extracts  from  his  Correspondence   and  IManuscripts.     Edited 
by  his  nephew,  Wm.  Henry  Channing.     Comprised  in  three 
volumes,  of  frgm  450  to  500  pages,  each,  uniform  with  the  best 
edition  of  the  Works.     Two   very   superior  portraits   of  Dr. 
Channing  appear  in  the  volumes  ;  one  from  a  painting  by  All- 
ston,  the  other  by  Gambadella.     Price  $  1.50. 
Contents. — Part  f/rs?,  —  Parentage  and  Birth;  Boyhood;  College  Life; 
Richmond;  Studies  and  Settlement.     Part  Second,  —  Early  Ministry ;  Spirit- 
ual Growtli ;   The  Unitarian   Controversy  ;   Bliddle-age   Ministry ;   European 
Journey.     Part  lliird,  — The  Ministry  and  Literature  ;  Religion  and  Philoso- 
phy ;  Social  Reforms  ;  The  Antislavery  Movement  ;  Politics ;  Friends  ;  Home 
Life;  Notes. 

NOTICES    OF   THE    PRESS. 

"  A  more  interesting  and  instructive  biographical  work  we  have  never  read. 
High  as  was  our  opinion  of  Channing,  — of  his  intellectual  and  moral  worth,  — 
the  perusal  of  this  work  has  convinced  us  that  we  never  duly  estimated  iiim. 

His  letters  reveal  his  character  more  fully  than  his  sermons  and  essays. 

In  his  letters  he  lays  his  heart  entirely  open  ;  and  no  man,  no  matter  what  his 
opinions  or  prejudices,  can  read  them  without  saying,  — '  Channing  was,  in- 
deed, a  great  and  good  man,  —  one  who  lived  for  the  world ! '  V  —  Christian 
Messenger. 

"  Only  one  who  was  similar  in  purpose  and  temper, —  who  felt  like  aspira- 
tions, hopes,  and  faith,  —  could  at  all  do  justice  to  the  distinguished  .subject. 
The  present  book  must,  therefore,  we  are  sure,  give  us  Channing's  character 
in  its  completeness,  and  true  harmony  and  proportions  of  parts."  —  Salem 
Observer. 

"  These  memoirs  of  a  great  and  good  man  will,  we  apprehend,  obtain  an  un- 
commonly extensive  circulation,  not  only  among  the  denomination  of  Chris- 
tians in  which  he  ranked  himself,  but  with  all  who  reverence  purity  of  charac- 
ter, an  enlarged  philanthropy,  and  eminent  talents,  guided  by  virtue  and  piety." 
—  Salem  Register. 

"  If  we  mistake  not,  now  is  the  very  time  in  God's  providence  when  the  bi- 
ography of  William  Ellery  Channing  could  best  make  its  appearance.  We  have 
heard  that  a  distinguished  divine,  of  different  speculative  religious  views  from 
Dr.  Channing,  has  recently  said,  — '  Channing  is  greatly  needed  among  us  at 
this  present  moment.'  Behold  him  here !  We  doubt  not  that  the  biography 
thus  prepared  is  to  make  a  great  impression  on  the  age  that  is  passing,  and  that 
is  yet  to  come." —  Christian  Register 


2  CROSBY,    NICHOLS,    &    CO.  S    PUBLICATIONS. 

MEMOIR  OF  MARY  L.  WARE,  Wife  of  Henry  Ware,  Jr. 
By  Rev.  Edward  B.  Hall.  With  a  fine  engraving  oa  steel. 
Seventh  Edition.     12mo.     Price,  $1.25. 

"  A  book  like  this  is  a  great  gift  to  the  world.     It  is  a  light  in  the  pathway  of 

every-day  life It  is  a  judicious,  affectionate  record  of  a  strong,  earnest, 

consistent  Christian  life It  is  delightful  to  see  a  character  so  t^horoughly 

religious  as  was  Mrs.  Ware's."  —  Buffalo  Com.  Advertiser. 

"Among  the  biographies  of  Christian  women,  eminent  for  their  piety,  their 
meek  devotion  to  tlieir  religious  profession,  and  their  holy  conduct  in  all  the 
walks  of  life,  this  Rlemoir  of  Mrs.  Ware  deserves  to  take  a  high  rank." —  Phil- 
adelphia Bullet  ill. 

"  No  one  could  desire,  for  sister,  daughter,  or  friend,  a  more  instructive,  pleas- 
ing, or  touching  lesson  of  the  quiet,  unobtrusive,  simple  virtues  of  domestic  life, 
tlian  this  unpretending  volume,  prepared  by  one  at  once  so  appreciative  of  the 
virtues  of  his  subject,  and  so  well  qualified  to  do  them  justice."  —  Boston  Atlas, 

"  The  book  is  a  treasure,  and  belongs  to  the  permanent  riches  of  our  devotional 
literature." —  Christian  Inquirer. 

THE  SICKNESS  AND  HEALTH  OF  THE  PEOPLE  OF 
BLEABURN.     1  vol.     16mo.     Price,  50  cents. 

"The  story  is  one  that  no  person  will  think  of  laying  down,  when  once  they 
begin  to  read  it,  until  the  last  word  of  the  last  page  has  been  reached."  — 
Traveller. 

THE  PROPHETS  AND  KINGS  OF  THE  OLD  TESTA- 
MENT. A  Series  of  Sermons  preached  in  the  Chapel  of 
Lincohi's  Inn.  By  Rev.  Frederic  Denison  Maurice,  Chap- 
lain of  Lincoln's  Inn,  and  Professor  of  Divinity  in  King's  Col- 
lege, London.      Second  Edition.     12mo.     Price,  $1.25. 

"  Rich  in  learning  and  thought  and  practical  views  of  life."  —  Christian  Ob- 
server. 

"  We  can  assure  our  readers  that  the  volume  will  be  found  fuU  of  instruction 

and  eminently  suggestive We  have  followed  his  instructive  pages  with 

delight."  —  Christian  Examiner. 

THE  CHILD'S  MATINS  AND  VESPERS.  By  a  Mother. 
Comprising  Meditations  and  Prayers  for  Morning  and  Evening, 
&c.     Second  Edition.     32mo.     Price,  37^  cents. 

"  A  capital  little  book  to  lay  on  your  child's  table  beside  the  Bible,  that  good 
and  holy  thoughts  may  be  the  first  and  last  every  day." —  Ohio  Inquirer. 

"The  parent  who  wishes  to  keep  the  heart  of  the  child  pure,  to  form  habits 
of  prayer,  to  inspire  the  young  mind  with  profitable  reflections,  and  lead  the 
early  years  into  proper  spiritual  habits,  will  be  greatly  assisted  by  this  little 
volume."  —  Christian  Era. 

LECTURES   TO   YOUNG   MEN.     By  Rev.  WiLr.iAM  G.  El- 
iot, Jr.     1  vol.     16mo.     Price,  62^  cents. 
Contents. -- An  Appeal.     Self- Education.     Leisure   Time.     Transgression. 

The  Ways  of  Wisdom.     Religion. 

"  The  practical  wisdom,  the  habits  of  close  observation,  and  the  sincere  piety 
of  Mr.  Eliot,  united  with  what  we  must  consider  an  essential  element  in  his  suc- 
cess,—  his  sympathy  with  the  young,  —  have  fitted  him  to  discharge  his  task 
successfully."  —  Christian  Examiner. 


CROSBY,    NICHOLS,    &    CO/s    PUBLICATIO^fS.  3 

LECTURES  TO  YOUNG  WOMEN.  By  Rev.  William  G. 
Eliot,  Jr.     1  vol.     16mo.     Price,  62^  cents. 

Contents.  —  An  Appeal.  Home.  Duties.  Education.  Follies.  Woman's 
Mission. 

"  We  know  of  no  book  which  wo  can  recommend  so  unhesitatingly  as  this  of 
Mr.  Eliot."  —  Christian  Exainiyier. 

REMINISCENCES  OF  THOUGHT  AND  FEELING.     By 

the  Author  of  "  Visiting  my  Relations."    16mo.    Price,  75  cts. 

'•'A  very  interesting,  piquant  book,  and  every  body  is  reading  it It 

will  do  a  great  deal  of  good  by  clearing  up  people's  morbid  moods  of  mind,  and 
showing  that  an  entire  trust  and  reliance  on  God  are  the  best  medicine  of  the 
heart.  This  work  shows  how  valuable  a  book  can  be  written  out  of  the  history 
of  a  private  life."  —  Cincinnati  paper. 

GOD  WITH  MEN  ;  or,  Footprints  of  Providential  Leaders. 
By  Rev.  Samuel  Osgood.     1  vol.     12mo. 

SERMONS.     By  Rev.  A.  A.  Livermore.     1  vol.     12mo 

HOW  I  BECAME  A  UNITARIAN,  explained  in  a  Series  of 
Letters  to  a  Friend.  By  a  Clergyman  of  the  Protestant  Epis- 
copal Church.    12rao.     Price,  75  cents. 

SERMONS   IN  THE   ORDER  OF   A  TWELVEMONTH 

By  Rev.  N.  L.  FrothIxVgham,  D.  D.     12mo.     Price,  $  1.00. 

"As  a  writer,  Mr.  Frothingham  ranks  among  the  best  of  New  England  di 

vines His  sermons  are  prepared  with  great  care,  and  possess,  on  account 

of  their  moral  tone,  their  fervent  spirit,  their  earnest  pleadings  for  duty,  a  high 
value."  —  Neto  Covenant. 

THE  MISCELLANIES  OF  JAMES  MARTINEAU.  Edited 
by  Rev.  Thomas  Starr  King.     12mo.     Price,  $  1.25. 

"  jMr.  Martineau's  productions  are  distinguished  by  a  loftiness  of  tone,  a  cath- 
olic candor,  a  severity  of  logic  and  intellectual  fidelity,  a  clearness  of  moral  dis- 
crimination, and  an  affluence  of  imagery,  and  vigorous  precision  of  expression." 

THE  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  FORGIVENESS 
OPSIN.  By  James  Freeman  Clarke.  16mo.  Price,  50  cts. 
'•'  This  is  the  work  of  a  thoughtful,  serious  man  ;  on  a  topic  of  great  practical 

importance It  contains  much  that  richly  deserves  the  serious  consi.lera 

lion  of  all  readers. ' '  —  Traveller. 

ST.  PAUL'S  EPISTLE  TO  THE  CORINTHIANS;    an  Al 

tempt  to  convey  their  Spirit  and  Significance.     By  Rev.  John 
Hamilton  Thom.     12mo.     Price,  75  cents. 

"  Its  deeply  religious  and  tolerant  spirit,  and  its  clear  expositions,  will  render 
it  an  instructive  and  agreeable  book  to  the  Biblical  scholar  and  devout  Christian 
of  every  faith." 

RELIGIOUS  THOUGHTS  AND  OPINIONS.     By  William 

voK  Humboldt.     16mo.     Price,  62^  cents. 

"It  cannotr  be  read  without  imparling  strensth  and  comfort,  especially  to 
those  who  are  called  to  endure  the  misfortunes  of  life."  —  Christian  Witness. 

"  To  read  them  seems  like  being  admitted  to  a  personal  and  privileged  inter- 
view with  one  of  the  greatest  men  of  the  age." 


4  CROSBY,    NICHOLS,    &    CO.'S    PUBLICATIONS. 

COMMUNION  THOUGHTS.  By  Rev.  Stephen  G.  Bul- 
FINCH.  Author  of  "Lays  of  the  Gospel,"  &c.,  &c.  IGmo. 
Price,  62^  cents. 

"  We  especially  commend  it  to  all  those  who  are  desirous  of  becoming  religious 

professors,  bul  hesitating  about  their  fitness No  one  can  read  it  without 

becoming  better."  —  Taunton  Whig. 

THE  CHRISTIAN  PARENT.  By  Rev.  A.  B.  Muzzey,  Au- 
thor of  "The  Young  Maiden,"  &c.,  &c.     16mo.    Price,  75 cts. 

"  We  regard  the  jook  as  one  of  the  best  of  its  kind  which  has  appeared  for  sev- 
eral years,  .....  and  we  would,  after  a  careful  perusal  of  this  volume,  own 
our  obligations  to  the  author  for  very  many  valuable  hints  and  suggestions  set 
forth  with  clearness  and  force."  —  Cambridge  Chronicle. 

THE  STARS  AND  THE  EARTH;  OR  THOUGHTS 
UPON  SPACE,  TIME,  AND  ETERNITY.  Third  Amer- 
ican from  the  Third  London  Edition.     18mo.     Price,  25  cents. 

"  It  contains  a  vast  amount  of  thought,  clothed  in  a  religious  garb,  and  through- 
out which  flows  an  exalted  view  of  argument,  inducing  lofty  aspirations  and 
clearer  views  of  the  wisdom  of  our  Creator,  as  the  reader  proceeds  step  by  step 
from  the  opening  page  to  the  close."  —  Taunton  Whig. 

ECHOES   OF   INFANT   VOICES.     16mo.     Price,  50  cents. 

"The  selections  are  made  with  good  taste  and  judgment,  from  the  best  Eng- 
lish and  American  poetry  of  Caroline  Bowles,  Mrs.  Hernans,  Longfellow,  Lowell, 
Bryant,  W.  B.  O.  Peabody,  and  others.  The  little  work  seems  admirably  cal- 
culated to  accomplish  its  mission  of  sympathy  and  kindness."  —  Cambridge 
Chronicle. 

SUNDAY    SCHOOL    AND    OTHER    ADDRESSES.       By 

Frederic   T.  Grat,  Pastor   of  the  Bulfinch  Street  Church. 

Price,  62|-  cents. 

"  Blr.  Gray  speaks  from  personal  knowledge,  and  the  Addresses  before  us  con- 
tain facts  of  great  interest,  which,  but  for  some  such  record,  would  soon  be  lost." 
—  Christian  Examiner. 

FAMILIAR  SKETCHES  OF  SCULPTURE  AND  SCULP- 
TORS. By  Mrs.H.  F.  Lee,  Author  of  "The  Old  Painters," 
"  Luther  and  his  Times,"  "  Cranmer  and  his  Times,"  &c.j  &c 
2  vols.     16mo. 

DISCOURSES  ON  THE  CHRISTIAN  SPIRIT  AND  LIFE. 

By  C.  A.  Bartol,  Junior  Minister  of  the  West  Church,  Bos- 
ton. Second  Edition,  revised,  with  an  Introduction.  12mo. 
Price,  $1.00. 

DISCOURSES  ON  THE  CHRISTIAN  BODY  AND  FORM 

By  C.  A.  Bartol.     12mo.     Price,  $  1.00. 

"The  highest  praise  that  we  can  give  these  Discourses  is,  to  say  that  they 
have  all  the  marks  and  features  of  Christian  sermons.  ......  Their  eloquence 

is  that  of  deep  religious  conviction,  and  of  fervor  as  calm  as  it  is  earnest,  as  ear 
nest  as  it  is  calm." —  Christian  Examiner. 

LECTURES  ON  THE  JEWISH  SCRIPTURES  *AND  AN- 
TIQUITIES. By  John  G.  Palfrey,  D.D.,  LL.D.  Volumes 
Three  and  Four.     8vo.,  cloth.     Price,  $  5.00. 


CROSBY,    NICHOLS,    &    CO.'s    PUBLICATIONS.  5 

SERMONS    ON    CHRISTIAN  COMMUNION.     Designed  to 
promote  the  Culture   of  the  Religious  Affections.     Edited  by 
Rev.  T.  R.  Sullivan.     12mo.     pp.  403.     Price,  75  cents. 
This  work  is  not  confined  to  the  subject  of  the  Lord's  Supper,  but  "forms 
a  series  of  practical  discourses  of  the  persuasive  kind,  relating  to  repentance, 
or  the  duty  of  commencing  the  Christian  course,  —  to  edification,  or  the  en- 
couragements to  progressive  Christian  improvement,  —  and  to  the  eucharistic 
service,  as  aflTording  exercise  for  all  the  grateful  and  devout  affections  of  the 
heart  in  every  stage  of  its  subjection  to  Christian  discipline."  —  Preface. 
The  following  is  a  list  of  the  writers  :  — 


Rev.  G.  E.  Ellis.  Charlestown. 

"  G.  PuT.vAM,'D.  D.,  Roxbury. 

"  J.  H.  MoRiso.v,  Milton. 

"  A.  YoTNG,  D.  D.,  Boston. 

"  E.  B.  Hall,  D.  D.,  Providence. 

"  S.  G.  BuLFixcH,  Nashua. 

"  O.  Dewey,  D.  D..  New  York. 

"  S.  Osgood,  Providence. 

"  A.  Hill,  Worcester. 

"  W.  H.  FuRNEss,  D.D.,  Philadelphia. 

"  N.  L.  Frothingham,  D.D.,  Boston. 

"  E.  Peabody,  Boston. 

"  S.  K.  LOTHKOP,      " 

"  C.  A.  Bartol,      " 

"  A.  B.  MuzzEY,  Cambridge. 


Rev,  H.  A.  Miles,  Lowell. 

"    F.  Parkman,  D.  D.,  Boston. 

"     S.  JuDD,  Augusta. 

"    F.  D.  HuxTiNGTONj  Boston. 

"     C.  T.  Brooks,  Newport. 

"     N.  Hall,  Dorchester. 

"    J.  I.  T.  Coolidge,  Boston. 

"    G.  W.  Briggs,  Plymouth. 

"     A.  A.  Livkrmore,  Keene.  " 

"    J.  Whitman.  Lexington. 

"    J.  W.  Thompson,  Salem. 

'•    H.  W.  Bellows,  New  York. 

"    E.  S.  Gannett,  D.  D.,  Boston. 

"    A.  P.  Peabody,  Portsmouth. 

"    J.  Walker,  D  D.,  Cambridge. 

"    C.  RoBBiNs,  Boston. 

"  The  design  of  the  work  is  admirable,  and  we  doubt  not  it  is  admirably 
executed,  and  will  promote  the  best  interests  of  our  churches.  We  chanced  to 
open  at  Sermon  XVIII.,  on  Christian  Education,  and  were  pleased  to  see  the 
idea  of  Dr.  Bushnell's  celebrated  book  on  *  Christian  Nurture'  illustrated  and 
urged  in  a  sermon  by  Dr.  Putnam,  preached  two  years  before  Dr.  Bushnell's 
book  made  its  appearance." —  Christian  Register. 

"  The  tone  of  these  sermons,  their  living  interest,  their  unpremeditated  vari- 
ety in  unity,  fit  them  well  for  this  purpose, —  close  personal  influence  on  minds 
of  widely  differing  views,  united  in  the  one  great  aim  of  a  Christian  life.  We 
shall  probably  take  an  early  opportunity  of  making  some  selections." —  Chris- 
tian Inquirer. 

"We  think  the  volume  is  upon  the  whole  one  of  the  best  volumes  of  dis- 
courses ever  issued  from  the  American  press."  —  Boston  Daily  Atlas. 

THE  GOSPEL  NARRATIVES,  their  Origin,  Peculiarities, 
and  Transmission.  By  Rev.  Henry  A.  Miles.  16mo 
pp.  174.     Price,  50  cents. 

This  work  is  designed  for  families  and  Sunday  Schools,  and  contains  a  com- 
parison of  each  Gospel  with  the  education,  life,  and  character  of  its  author, 
and  with  the  purpose  which  he  had  in  view  in  its  composition  ;  as  also  an  ac- 
count of  the  transmission  of  the  Gospels  down  to  our  time,  and  the  evidence 
of  their  uncorrupted  preservation. 

'•'  This  volume  by  l\Ir.  Miles  has  substantial  value.  It  is  by  the  circulation 
and  use  of  such  books  that  Christian  knowledge  is  to  be  extended,  and  Chris- 
tian faith  confirmed.  By  a  thorough  study  even  of  this  small  work  in  child 
hood,  many  persons  might  have  the  satisfaction  of  carrying  through  life  a  clear 
and  connected  idea  of  the  biographies  of  Jesus,  and  of  the  nature  of  the  exter- 
nal evidence  in  their  favor,  instead  of  remaining  in  vague  uncertainty  on  the 
whole  subject.  Bringing  into  a  simple  and  popular  form,  and  small  compass, 
information  not  hitherto  accessible,  except  to  a  limited  number  of  persons,  the 
'  Gospel  Narrativ;j3  '  will  be  interesting  to  the  general  reader,  whether  youthful 
or  adult.  It  mnst,  without  doubt,  be"  introduced  in  all  our  Sunday  Schools, 
and  will  ra^^k  among  the  most  important  manuals." 


b  CROSBY,    NICHOLS,    &    CO.  S    PUBLICATIONS. 

NAOMI ;  or  Boston  Two  Hundred  Years  Ago.  A  Tale  of  the 
Q,uaker  Persecutioii  in  New  England.  By  Eliza  Buckmin- 
STER  I,EE,  Author  of  "  The  Life  of  Jean  Paul."  Second  Edi- 
tion.    12nio.     pp.  324.     Price,  75  cents. 

The  first  edition  of  this  popular  book  was  exhausted  within  a  month  after  its 
publication. 

"Mrs.  Lee  has  given  the  public  a  most  agreeable  book.  Her  style  is  ele- 
vated and  earnest.  Her  sentiments,  of  the  pure  and  the  true.  The  characters 
are  well  conceived,  and  are  presented  each  in  strong  individuality,  and  with 
such  apparent  truthfulness  as  almost  to  leave  us  in  doubt  whether  they  are  '  be- 
ings of  the  mind,'  or  were  real  men  and  women  who  bore  the  parts  she  assigns 
them  in  those  dark  tragedies  that  stained  this  '  fair  heritage  of  freedom '  in  the 
early  days  of  IMassachusetts."  —  Worcester  Palladium. 

"  We  have  been  exceedingly  interested  in  this  book,  and  recommend  it  as 
a  beautiful  picture  of  female  piety  and  quiet  heroism,  set  in  a  frame  of  history 
and  tradition,  that  cannot  fail  to  please  every  one  connected,  however  remotely, 
with  the  land  of  the  Puritans.  The  accomplished  author  of  '  The  Life  of  Jean 
Paul'  has  produced  an  American  novel  which  we  should  like  to  see  followed  by 
others  illustrative  of  the  facts  and  manners  of  the  olden  time."  —  Christian 
Inquirer. 

THE  MARRIAGE  OFFERING.  Designed  as  a  Gift  to  the 
Newly-married,  Edited  by  Rev.  A.  A.  Livermore.  16mo. 
pp.  215.     Price,  62  cents. 

"  It  was  a  happy  thought  that  suggested  such  a  volume.  We  were  not  aware 
before  that  there  was  so  much  and  so  various  Christian  literature  on  the  sub- 
ject." —  Christian  Register. 

MARTYRIA  ;  a  Legend,  wherein  are  contained  Homilies,  Con- 
versations, and  Incidents  of  the  Reign  of  Edward  the  Sixth. 
Written  by  William  Mountford,  Clerk.  With  an  Introduc- 
tion to  the  American  Edition,  by  Rev.  F.  D.  Huntington. 
I6mo.     pp.  348.     Price,  75  cents. 

"The  charm  of  the  book  lies  in  the  elevated  tone  of  thought  and  moral  sen- 
timent which  pervades  it.  You  feel,  on  closing  the  volume,  as  if  leaving  some 
ancient  cathedral,  where  your  soul  had  been  mingling  with  ascending  anthems 
and  prayers.  There  is  scarcely  a  page  which  does  not  contain  some  fine  strain 
of  thou2ht  or  sentiment,  over  which  you  shut  the  book  that  you  may  pause 
and  me5itate. 

"  AVe  recommend  the  volume  to  our  readers,  with  the  assurance  that  they 
will  find  few  works  in  the  current  literature  of  the  day  so  well  worth  perusal." 
—  Christian  Register. 

"  This  is  really  an  original  book.  We  have  seen  nothing  for  a  long  time 
more  fresh  or  true.  The  writer  has  succeeded  wonderfully,  in  taking  himself 
and  his  readers  into  the  heart  of  the  age  he  describes.  What  is  more,  he  has 
uttered  words  and  thoughts  which  stir  up  the  deep  places  of  the  soul.  Let 
those  read  who  wish  to  commune  with  the  true  and  unpretending  martyr-spirit, 
the  spread  of  faith  and  endurance,  courage,  self-denial,  forgiveness,  prayer. 

"  Of  all  the  treatises  we  have  ever  read  on  marriage,  we  have  seen  none  so 
good  as  one  here  called  a  '  Jllarriage  Sermon ' ;  not  that  we  would  ask  any 
couple  to  hear  it  all  on  their  marriage  day,  but  we  commend  it  to  all  who  are 
married,  or  intend  to  be.    The  whole  book  is  precious."  —  Provide?ice  Journal. 

"There  are  few  religious  books  which  breathe  a  finer  spirit  than  this  singu- 
lar volume.  The  author's  mind  seems  to  have  meditated  deeply  on  the  awful 
realities  of  life.  In  the  thoughtful  flow  of  his  periods,  and  the  grave,  earnest 
eloquence  of  particular  passages,  we  are  sometimes  reminded  of  the  Old  English 
prose-writers.  The  work  is  a  '  curiosity  '  of  literature,  well  worth  an  attentive 
perusal." —  Grahams  Magazine. 


CROSBY,    NICHOLS,    &    CO.'s    PUBLICATIONS.  7 

A    TRANSLATION    OF    PAUL'S    EPISTLE    TO    THE 
ROiMANS,   with   an  Introduction  and  Notes.     By  William 
A.    Whitwell,   Minister   of   the   Congregational   Society  in 
Wilton,  N.  H.     l6mo.     pp.116.     Price,  5U  cents. 
"We  would  express  a  high  opinion  of  the  book,  and  can  assure  the  Chris- 
tian reader  who  will  compare  it  carefully  with  our  common  version,  that  he 
will  rise  up  from  the  joint  perusal  of  the  two  with  a  better  understanding  of 
Paul  than  he  had  before." —  Christian  Register. 

CHRISTIANITY   THE   DELIVERANCE    OF  THE  SOUL 
AND  ITS  LIFE.     By  William  Mountford.     With  an  In- 
troduction   by   Rev.   Y.   D.   Huntington.     16mo.      pp.   113 
Price,  37^  cents. 
"  Mr.  Mountford  is  full  of  warm  religious  feeling.    He  brings  religion  home 

to  the  heart,  and  applies  it  as  the  guide  of  the  life."  —  London  Inquirer. 

SELF-FORMATION ;  or  the  History  of  an  Individual  Mind  : 
Intended  as  a  Guide  for  the  Intellect  through  Difficulties  to 
Success.  By  a  Fellow  of  a  College.  12mo  pp.  504.  Price, 
$1.00. 

"  The  publishers  have  done  good  service  by  bringing  forward  an  American 
edition  of  this  work.  It  may  be  most  unreservedly  recommended,  especially  to 
the  young."  —  Daily  Advertiser . 

"Your  gift  of  '  Self-Formation'  is  truly  a  welcome  one,  and  I  am  greatly 
obliged  to  you  for  it.  It  is  a  work  of  quite  original  character,  and  I  esteem  it 
(in  common  with  all  I  know  of,  who  have  read  it)  as  possessed  of  very  rare 
merit.  I  am  glad,  for  the  cause  of  good  education  and  sound  principle,  that 
you  have  republished  it,  and  I  wish  every  young  man  and  woman  in  the  com- 
munity might  be  induced  to  read  it  carefully.  It  is  several  years  since  I  looked 
into  it  in  the  English  edition,  —but  I  yet  retain  a  vivid  impression  of  the  great 
delight  it  afforded  me,  and  I  shall  gladly  avail  of  the  opportunity  of  renewing 
it."  — Extract  from  a  Letter. 

"  This  is  emphatically  a  good  book,  which  may  be  read  with  profit  by  all 
classes,  but  more  especially  by  young  men,  to  whose  wants  it  is  admirably 
adapted.  The  American  editor  is  no  doubt  right  in  saying,  that  it  is  almost 
without  a  question  the  most  valuable  and  useful  work  on  self  education  that 
has  appeared  in  our  own,  if  not  in  any  other  language."  —  Neto  YorkTribune. 

THOUGHTS  ON   MORAL  AND  SPIRITUAL  CULTURE. 

By  Rev.  Robert  C.  Waterston.     Second  Edition,  revised. 

16mo.     pp.  302.     Price,  62^  cents. 

This  book  has  met  with  a  ready  sale  in  this  country,  and  has  been  republished 
in  England.  A  London  periodical,  in  reviewing  it,  says:  — "We  will  ven- 
ture to  predict  that  it  will  soon  take  its  place  on  the  shelves  of  our  religious 
libraries,  beside  Ware  'On  the  Christian  Character,'  Greenwood's  '  Lives  of  the 
Apostles,'  and  other  works  to  which  we  might  refer  as  standard  publications, 
the  value  of  which  is  not  likely  to  be  diminished  by  the  lapse  of  time  or  the 
caprices  of  fashion." 

"  The  sense  of  duty  in  parents  and  teachers  may  be  strengthened  and  elevated 
by  contemplating  the  high  standard  which  is  here  held  up  to  them.  The  style 
has  the  great  merit  of  being  an  earnest  one,  and  there  are  many  passages  which 
rise  into'genuine  eloquence  and  the  glow  of  poetry."  —  N.  A.  Review. 

"  The  Lecture  '  On  the  Best  Means  of  exerting  a  Moral  and  Spiritual  Influence 
in  Schools,'  no  teacher,  male  or  female,  possessed  of  any  of  the  germs  of  im- 
provement, can  read  without  benefit."  — Hon.  Horace  Mann,  Secretary  of  the 
Board  of  Education. 


8  CROSBY,    NICHOLS,    &c    CO.'s    PUBLICATIONS. 

DOMESTIC  WORSHIP.     By  William  H.  Furness,  Pastci 
of  the  First  Congregational  Unitarian  Church  in  Philadelphia 
Third  Editi.on.     12kio,    pp.  272.     Price,  50  cents. 
"  We  are  glad  to  see  this  book.   It  is  a  work  of  great  and  peculiar  excellence. 
It  is  not  a  compilation  from  other  books  of  devotion ;  nor  is  it  made  up  of 
conventional  phrases  and  Scripture  quotations,  which  have  been  so  long  em- 
ployed as  the  language  of  prayer,  that  they  are  repeated  without  thought  and 
without  feeling.    It  is  admirably  adapted  to  the  purpose  for  which  it  was  writ- 
ten ;  and  it  may  be  read  again  and  again  with  great   interest  and  profit  by  any 
one,  who  desires  to  enrich  his  mind  with  the  purest  sentiments  of  devotion, 
and  with  the  language  in  which  it  finds  its  best  expression.     Here  we  have  the 
genuine  utterances  of  religious  sensibility,  —  fresh,  natural,  and  original,  as 
they  come  from  a  mind  of  singular  fertility  and  beauty,  and  a  heart  overflow- 
ing with  love  to  God  and  love  to  man.     They  seem  not  like  prayers  made  with 

hands,  to  be  printed  in  a  book,  but  real  praying,  full  of  spirit  and  life 

So  remarkable  is  their  tone  of  reality  and  genuineness,  that  we  cannot  bring 
ourselves  lo  regard  them  as  compositions  written  for  a  purpose,  but  rather  as 
the  actual  utterances  of  a  pure  and  elevated  soul  in  reverent  and  immediate 
communion  with  the  Infinite  Father." —  Christia7i  Examiner. 

LAYS  FOR  THE  SABBATH.  A  Collection  of  Religious 
Poetry.  Compiled  by  Emily  Taylor.  Revised,  with  Addi- 
tions, by  John  Pierpont.     16mo.    pp.  288.     Price,  50  cents. 

"  It  is  simple  and  unpretending  ;  and  though  some  of  the  pieces  are  probably 
familiar  to  most  readers,  they  all  breathe  a  pure  and  elevated  spirit,  and  here 
and  there  is  an  exquisite  effusion  of  genius,  which  answers  to  the  holiest  wants 
of  the  soul. 

"  Not  only  great  pleasure  may  be  derived  from  such  a  volume,  but  lasting 
and  useful  impressions.  Many  are  keenly  alive  lo  the  harmony  of  verse  and 
the  fresh  outbursts  of  poetic  feeling,  who  would  pore  with  delight  over  such  a 
volume,  and  many  might  thus  be  won  to  high  thought  and  serious  reflection." 

—  Christian  Examiner. 

THE  YOUNG  MAIDEN.  Seventh  Edition.  By  Rev.  A.  B. 
MuzzEY,  Author  of  "  The  Young  Man's  Friend,"  "  Sunday 
School  Guide,"  etc.,  etc.     16mo.    pp.264.    Price,  62j^  cents. 

Contents.  —  The  Capacities  of  Woman  ;  Female  Influence;  Female  Educa- 
tion ;  Home;  Society;  Love;  Single  Life;  Reasons  for  Marriage  ;  Conditions 
of  True  Marriage ;  Society  of  Young  Men ;  First  Love ;  Conduct  during  En- 
gagement 5  Trials  of  Woman  and  her  Solace  ;  Encouragements. 

"  The  sentiments  and  principles  enforced  in  this  book  may  be  safely  com- 
mended to  the  attention  of  women  of  all  ranks.  Its  purpose  is  excellent 
throughout ;  and  as  it  is  everywhere  governed  by  a  just  and  amiable  spirit,  we 
believe  it  is  calculated  to  do  much  good."  —  London  Atlas. 

"  A  little  work,  well  worthy,  from  its  good  sense  and  good  feeling,  to  be 
a  permanent  and  favorite  monitor  to  our  fair  countrywomen."  —  Morning 
Herald. 

A  HISTORY  OF  SUNDAY  SCHOOLS  and  of  Religious  Edu- 
cation, from  the  Earliest  Times.  By  Lewis  G.  Pray.  Embel- 
lished with  two  Engravings.    16mo.    pp.270.    Price,  62^  cents. 

"The  author  has  been  for  a  long  period  engaged  in  the  cause  of  which  he 
has  now  become  the  historian;  and  if  ardor,  perseverance,  and  faithfulness  in 
that  service  qualify  him  to  write  its  history,  we  know  of  no  one  to  whom  it 
could  have  been  more  properly  confided."  —  Portsmouth  Jouryial. 

"  A  volume  of  great  interest  to  all  who  have  at  heart  the  subject  discussed  " 

—  Literary  World. 


CROSBY,    NICHOLS,    &    CO.'s    PUBLICATIONS.  9 

LIFE  IN  THE  SICK-ROOM.  Essays,  by  Harriet  Marti- 
NEAU.  With  an  Introduction  to  the  American  Edition,  by 
Mrs.  Follen.  Second  American  Edition.  16mo.  pp.  19b. 
Price,   50  cents. 

"For  the  principles  which  it  inculcates,  for  the  exalted  iJeal  it  presents, 
for  the  renovating  spirit  with  which  it  is  filled,  the  book  cannot  fail  to  be  a 
blessing  to  humanity."  —  Christian  Examiner. 

EUTHANASY,  or  Happy  Talk  towards  the  End  of  Life. 
By  William  Mountford.  Author  of  "  Martyria."  IGmo. 
Prices  1.00. 

"  This  is  a  book  which  will  prove  an  incalculable  treasure  to  those  who  are  in 
sorrow  and  bereavement,  and  cannot  be  perused  by  any  thoughtful  mind  with- 
out pleasure  eind  improvement."  —  Christian  Examiner. 

THE    CHRISTIAN    PARENT.      By  Rev.   A.  B.   Muzzey, 

Author  of  "  The  Young  Maiden,"  &c.,  &.c.     16mo.     Price, 
7.5  cents. 

RELIGIOUS  CONSOLATION.  Edited  by  Rev.  Ezra  S.  Gan- 
ifETT.     16mo.     Price,  50  cents. 

Contents. — The  Good  of  Affliction;  The  Mourner  Comforted;  Erroneous 
Views  of  Death  ;  The  Departed  ;  Death  and  Sleep ;  Immortality  ;  Trust  in  God 
under  Afflictions;  Filial  Trust ;  The  Future  Life  ;  Friends  in  Heaven;  Hope; 
Thanksgiving  in  Affliction;  Trust  amidst  Trial ;  Life  and  Death  ;  The  Voices 
of  the  Dead  ;  To  the  3Iemory  of  a  Friend ;  A  Prayer  in  Affliction  ;  Duties  of 
the  Afflicted  ;  The  IMourner  Blessed;  Consolation;  The  Dangers  of  Adversity ; 
Trust  in  Divine  Love;  The  Promises  of  Jesus;  The  Believer's  Hope;  The 
Uses  of  Affliction  :  Time  Passing;  The  Christian's  Death;  The  Hope  of  Immor- 
tality ;  God  our  Father. 

THOUGHTS  ;  selected  from  the  Works  of  William  Ellert 
Changing,  D.  D.     32mo.     pp.  160.    Price,  37^  cents. 

"This  is  a  diamond  of  a  volume,  the  purpose  of  which  is  well  expressed  in 
the  following  '  thought '  from  Channing,  which  is  put  on  the  title-page :  — 

"  'Sometimes  a'single  word,  spoken  by  the  voice  of  genius,  goes  far  into 
the  heart.  A  hint,  a  suggestion,  an  undefined  delicacy  of  expression,  teaches 
more  than  we  gather  from  volumes  of  less  gifted  men.' 

"Those  who  differ  in  theological  views  from  the  gifted  Channing  will  of 
course  find  many  thoughts  in  this  little  volume  not  to  their  taste.  But  those  to 
whom  any  theological  views  have  ever  done  much  good  will  nevertheless  prize 
the  book  for  its  thoughts.  Thoughts  they  are,  not  faint  reflections  of  thought. 
And  those  who  would  be  wise  above  all  things  prize  to  know  what  can^ 
thought  on  all  sides  of  every  important  subject.^  To  enrich  our  columns  we 
borrow  a  gem  or  two."  —  Chronotype. 

"  A  collection  of  noble  thoughts,  that  may  well  take  its  place  by  the  side  of 
the  celebrated  thoughts  of  Pascal,  which  have  in  them  more  of  metaphysics,  but 
less  that  touches  the  human  heart.  It  makes  a  beautiful  pocket  volume."  — 
Christian  Examiner. 

"We  have  long  desired  to  see  a  book  of  this  kind,  and  now,  from  a  slight 
examination,  believe  tbat  it  is  well  done.  It  is  a  beautiful  collection  of  beauti- 
ful thoughts,  and  must  be  a  welcome  possession,  not  only  for  all  who  agree 
with  Dr.~ Channing  in  his  peculiar  religious  opinions,  but  for  all  who  value 
lofty  sentiments  worthily  expressed,  and  who  by  the  influence  of  such  thoughts 
would  be  strengthened  to  duty,  or  raised  to  a  higher  sphere  of  contemplation." 
—  Christian  Register.  r 


10  CROSBY,    NICHOLS,    &    CO.'s    PUBLICATIONS. 

DAVID  ELLINGTON.  By  Rev.  Henry  Ware,  Jr.  With 
other  Extracts  from  his  Writings.  18mo.  pp.  192.  Price, 
37^  cents. 

"  I\Ir.  Ware  has  left  very  few  things  which  will  do  so  much  towards  pro- 
moting the  great  object  for  which  he  lived  and  labored.  The  simple  story  of  the 
every-day  life  of  a  good  man,  told  as  these  stories  are  told,  finds  a  response  in 
the  hearts  of  those  most  indifferent  to  the  great  concerns  of  virtue  and  religion  ; 
it  reaches  and  touches  what  nothing  else,  not  the  eloquent  preaching  of  an 
apostle,  could  reach  and  touch." 

CHRISTIAN  CONSOLATIONS.  Sermons  designed  to  fur- 
nish Comfort  and  Strength  to  the  Afflicted.  By  Rev.  A.  P. 
Peabody,  Pastor  of  the  South  Church,  Portsmouth,  N.  H. 
I6mo.     pp.  320.     Price,  75  cents. 

"  We  welcome  with  almost  as  much  surprise  as  satisfaction  the  appearance 
of  a  volume  of  discourses  as  excellent  as  those  of  Mr.  Peabody.  They  are  ricti 
in  thought,  and  of  a  high  order  of  literary  merit."  —  N.  A.  Review. 

THE  GENERAL  FEATURES  OF  THE  MORAL  GOV- 
ERNiMENT  OF  GOD.  By  A.  B.  Jacocks.  16mo.  pp.  94. 
Price,  37^  cents. 

GENERAL  PRINCIPLES  OF  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF 
NATURE :  with  an  OutHne  of  some  of  its  recent  Develop- 
ments among  the  Germans,  embracing  the  Philosophical  Sys- 
tems of  Schelling  and  Hegel,  and  Oken's  System  of  Nature. 
By  J.  B.  Stallo,  A.  M.,  lately  Professor  of  Analytical  Mathe- 
matics, Natural  Philosophy,  and  Chemistry  in  St.  John's 
College,  N.Y.     12mo.     pp.532.     Price,  $1.25. 

'■'It  grapples  with  the  most  abstruse  problems,  and  tugs  fiercely  to  pluck  out 
tiie  heart  of  their  mystery.  No  difficulty  is  too  great  for  the  author  to  meet, 
and  none  seems  able  to  upset  his  theory.  In  truth,  the  book  is  one  of  the  most 
profound  ever  published  in  Boston,  and  whatever  opinion  may  be  given  regard- 
ing its  principles,  none  can  gainsay  its  vigor  of  understanding  and  reach  of 
learning.  The  pertinent  question,  Who  reads  an  American  book?  will  change 
somewliat  its  meaning,  if  American  literature  takes  the  abstruse  direction  indi- 
cated by  I\Ir.  Stallo 's  volume.  In  that  event,  our  books  will  remain  unread, 
not  because  they  are  too  shallow,  but  because  they  are  too  deep."  —  Boston 
Courier. 

MORNING  AND  EVENING  MEDITATIONS,  for  every  Day 
^n  a  Month.     By  Miss  Carpenter  (daughter  of  the  late  Dr. 
Lant  Carpenter).     16mo.     pp.  312.     Price,  62^  cents. 

"  The  compiler  of  this  work  has  rendered  good  service  to  all  possessed  of 
Christian  sympathies."  —  Literary  World. 

"We  like  its  spirit,  and  believe  it  will  prove  an  excellent  closet  companion 
for  those  who  will  faithfully  use  it."  —  Christian  Register. 

THE  WORDS  OF  CHRIST ;  from  the  New  Testament.  16mo 
pp.  150.     Price,  50  cents. 

""Phe  compiler  has  most  happily  collected  the  words  of  Christ,  so  that,  by 
the  slightest  reference  possible  to  the  tables,  every  text  is  ascertained  under  the 
several  heads.  It  will  prove  very  beneficial  to  the  Biblical  scholar,  clergyman, 
and  Sunday-school  teacher."—  Christian  World. 


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